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FIRST PRINCIPLES 



BY 



HERBERT SPENCER 

M 

AUTHOR OF SOCIAL STATICS, THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY, 

ESSAYS : SCIENTIFIC, POLITICAL AND SPECULATIVE, 

EDUCATION, ETC. 



NEW YORK 
APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1898 



Copyright, 1864, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



18 






/ ?(o? 



&z> 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 



To the first edition of this work there should have been 
prefixed a definite indication of its origin ; and the misappre- 
hensions that have arisen in the absence of such indication, 
ought before now to have shown me the need for supply- 
ing it. 

Though reference was made in a note on the first page 
of the original preface, to certain Essays entitled " Progress: 
its Law and Cause/' and " Transcendental Physiology/' as 
containing generalizations which were to be elaborated in 
the " System of Philosophy " there set forth in programme, 
yet the dates of these Essays were not given; nor was there 
any indication of their cardinal importance as containing, 
in a brief form, the general Theory of Evolution. E"o clear 
evidence to the contrary standing in the way, there has 
been very generally uttered and accepted the belief that 
this work, and the works following it, originated after, 
and resulted from, the special doctrine contained in Mr. 
Darwin's Origin of Species. 

The Essay on " Progress: its Law and Cause/' coexten- 
sive in the theory it contains with Chapters XV., XVI., 
XVII., and XX. in Part II. of this work, was first published 
in the Westminster Reviews for April, 1857; and the Essay 
in which is briefly sot forth the general truth elaborated in 
Chapter XTX., originally appeared, under the title of " The 
Ultimate Laws of Physiology," in the National Review for 
October, 1857. Further, I may point out that in the first 



vi PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 

edition of the Principles of Psychology, published in July, 
1855, mental phenomena are interpreted entirely from the 
evolution point of view ; and the words used in the titles of 
sundry chapters, imply the presence, at that date, of ideas 
more widely applied in the Essays just named. As the first 
edition of The Origin of Species did not make its appear- 
ance till October, 1859, it is manifest that the theory set 
forth in this work and its successors, had an origin independ- 
ent of, and prior to, that which is commonly assumed to 
have initiated it. 

The distinctness of origin might, indeed, have been in- 
ferred from the work itself, which deals with Evolution 
at large — Inorganic, Organic, and Super-organic — in terms 
of Matter and Motion; and touches but briefly on those 
particular processes so luminously exhibited by Mr. Dar- 
win. In § 159 only (p. 447), when illustrating the law 
of " The Multiplication of Effects/' as universally dis- 
played, have I had occasion to refer to the doctrine set 
forth in the Origin of Species pointing out that the general 
cause I had previously assigned for the production of diver- 
gent varieties of organisms, would not suffice to account 
for all the facts without that special cause disclosed by 
Mr. Darwin. The absence of this passage would, of 
course, leave a serious gap in the general argument; 
but the remainder of the work would stand exactly as it 
now does. 

I do not make this explanation in the belief that the 
prevailing misapprehension will thereby soon be rectified; 
for I am conscious that, once having become current, wrong 
beliefs of this kind long persist — all disproofs notwithstand- 
ing. Nevertheless, I yield to the suggestion that un- 
less I state the facts as they stand, I shall continue 
to countenance the misapprehension, and cannot expect it 
to cease. 

With the exception of unimportant changes in one of 
the notes, and some typographical corrections, the text of 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. v ii 

this edition is identical with that of the last. I have, how- 
ever, added an Appendix dealing with certain criticisms 
that have been passed upon the general formula of Evo- 
lution, and upon the philosophical doctrine which pre- 
cedes it. 

May, 1880. 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 



The present volume is the first of a series designed to un- 
fold the principles of a new philosophy. It is divided into 
two parts: the aim of the first being to determine the true 
sphere of all rational investigation, and of the second, to 
elucidate those fundamental and universal principles which 
science has established within that sphere, and which are to 
constitute the basis of the system. The scheme of truth de- 
veloped in these. First Principles is complete in itself, and 
has its independent value; but it is designed by the 
author to serve for guidance and verification in the con- 
struction of the succeeding and larger portions of his philo- 
sophic plan. 

Having presented in his introductory volume so much of 
the general principles of Physics as is essential to the devel- 
opment of his method, Mr. Spencer enters upon the subject 
of Organic nature. The second work of the series is to be the 
Principles of Biology — a systematic statement of the facts 
and laws which constitute the Science of Life. It is not to 
be an encyclopedic and exhaustive treatise upon this vast 
subject, but such a compendious presentation of its data and 
general principles as shall interpret the method of 
nature, afford a clear understanding of the questions in- 
volved, and prepare for further inquiries. This work is 
now published in quarterly numbers, of from 80 to 96 
pages. Four of these parts have already appeared, and some 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. i x 

idea of the course and character of the discussion may be 
formed by observing the titles to the chapters, which are as 
follows : 

Paet First: I. Organic Matter; II. The Actions of 
Forces on Organic Matter; III. The Reactions of Organic 
Matter on Forces; IV. Proximate Definition of Life; V. 
The Correspondence between Life and its Circumstances; 
VI. The Degree of Life varies with the Degree of Corre- 
spondence; VII. Scope of Biology. Part Second: I. 
Growth ; II. Development ; III. Function ; IV. Waste and 
Repair ; V. Adaptation ; VI. Individuality ; VII. Genesis ; 
VIII. Heredity; IX. Variation; X. Genesis, Heredity, and 
Variation; XL Classification; XII. Distribution. 

The Principles of Biology will be followed by the Princi- 
ples of Psychology; that is, Mr. Spencer will pass from the 
consideration of Life to the study of the Mind. This subject 
will be regarded in the light of the great truths of Biology 
previously established ; the connexions of life and mind will 
be traced ; the evolution of the intellectual faculties in their 
due succession, and in correspondence with the conditions 
of the environment, will be unfolded, and the whole sub- 
ject of mind will be treated, not by the narrow metaphysical 
methods, but in its broadest aspect, as a phase of nature's 
order which can only be comprehended in the light of her 
universal plan. 

The fourth work of the series is Sociology, or the science 
of human relations. As a multitude is but an assemblage of 
units, and as the characteristics of a multitude result from 
the properties of its units, so social phenomena are conse- 
quences of the natures of individual men. Biology and Psy- 
chology are the two great keys to the knowledge of human 
nature; and hence from these Mr. Spencer naturally passes 
to the subject of Social Science. The growth of society, 
the conditions of its intellectual and moral progress, the de- 
velopment of its various activities and organizations, will be 
here described, and a statement mado of those principles 



X PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 

which are essential to the successful regulation of social 
affairs. 

Lastly, in Part Fifth, Mr. Spencer proposes to consider 
the Principles of Morality. The truths furnished by Biolo- 
gy, Psychology, and Sociology will be here brought to 
bear, to determine correct rules of human action, the princi- 
ples of private and public justice, and to form a true theory 
of right living. 

The reader will obtain a more just idea of the extent and 
proportions of Mr. Spencer's philosophic plan, by consulting 
his prospectus at the close of the volume. It will be seen 
to embrace a wide range of topics, but in the present work, 
and in his profound and original volumes on the " Principles 
of Psychology " and " Social Statics/' as also throughout 
his numerous Essays and Discussions, we discover that he 
has already traversed almost the entire field, while to elabo- 
rate the whole into one connected and organized philosoph- 
ical scheme, is a work well suited to his bold and comprehen- 
sive genius. With a metaphysical acuteness equalled only by 
his immense grasp of the results of physical science — alike 
remarkable for his profound analysis, constructive ability, 
and power of lucid and forcible statement, Mr. Spencer has 
rare endowments for the task he has undertaken, and can 
hardly fail to embody in his system the largest scientific and 
philosophical tendencies of the age. 

As the present volume is a working out of universal prin- 
ciples to be subsequently applied, it is probably of a more ab- 
stract character than will be the subsequent works of the 
series. The discussions strike down to the prof oundest basis 
of human thought, and involve the deepest questions upon 
which the intellect of man has entered. Those unaccus- 
tomed to close metaphysical reasoning, may therefore find 
parts of the argument not easy to follow, although it is 
here presented with a distinctness and a vigor to be found 
perhaps in no other author. Still, the chief portions of the 
book may be read by all with ease and pleasure, while no one 



PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. x i 

can fail to be repaid for the persistent effort that may be re- 
quired to master the entire argument. All who have 
sufficient earnestness of nature to take interest in those 
transcendent questions which are now occupying the 
most advanced minds of the age, will find them here 
considered with unsurpassed clearness, originality, and 
power. 

The invigorating influence of philosophical studies upon 
the mind, and their consequent educational value, have been 
long recognized. In this point of view the system here pre- 
sented has high claims upon the young men of our country, 
— embodying as it does the latest and largest results of posi- 
tive science ; organizing its facts and principles upon a natu- 
ral method, which places them most perfectly in command 
of memory ; and converging all its lines of inquiry to the end 
of a high practical beneficence, — the unfolding of those laws 
of nature and human nature which determine personal wel- 
fare and the social polity. Earnest and reverent in temper, 
cautious in statement, severely logical and yet presenting 
his views in a transparent and attractive style which com- 
bines the precision of science with many of the graces of 
lighter composition, it is believed that the thorough study of 
Spencer's philosophical scheme would combine, in an un- 
rivalled degree, those prime requisites of the highest educa- 
tion, a knowledge of the truths which it is most impor- 
tant for man to know, and that salutary discipline of 
the mental faculties which results from their systematic 
acquisition. 

We say the young men of our country, for if we are not 
mistaken, it is here that Mr. Spencer is to find his largest 
and fittest audience. There is something in the bold han- 
dling of his questions, in his earnest and fearless appeal to 
first principles, and in the practical availability of his conclu- 
sions, which is eminently suited to the genius of our people. 
It has been so in a marked sense with his work on Education, 
and there is no reason why it should not be so in an equal 



x ii PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 

degree with his other writings. They betray a profound 
sympathy with the best spirit of our institutions, and that 
noble aspiration for the welfare and improvement of society 
which can hardly fail to commend them to the more liberal 
and enlightened portions of the American public. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



When the First Edition of this work was published, I sup- 
posed that the general theory set forth in its Second Part, 
was presented in something like a finished form; but sub- 
sequent thought led me to further developments of much 
importance, and disclosed the fact that the component 
parts of the theory had been wrongly put together. 
Even in the absence of a more special reason, I had decided 
that, on the completion of the Principles of 'Biology, it would 
be proper to suspend for a few months the series I am 
issuing, that I might make the required re-organization. 
And when the time had arrived, there had arisen a more 
special reason, which forbade hesitation. Translations into 
the French and Russian languages were about to be made 
— had, in fact, been commenced; and had I deferred the re- 
organization the work would have been reproduced with 
all its original imperfections. This will be a sufficient ex- 
planation to those who have complained of the delay in the 
issue of the Principles of Psychology. 

The First Part remains almost untouched: two verbal 
alterations only, on pp. 43 and 99, having been made to 
prevent misconceptions. Part II., however, is wholly trans- 
formed. Its first chapter, on " Laws in General," is omitted, 
witli a view to the inclusion of it in one of the latter volumes 
of the series. Two minor chapters disappear. Most of the 
rest are transposed, in groups or singly. And there are nine 

new chapters embodying the further developments, and 

xiii 



XIV 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



serving to combine the pre-existing chapters into a changed 
whole. The following scheme in which the new chapters 
are marked by italics, will give an idea of the transforma- 
tion : — 

First Edition. Second Edition. 



Lowe in Gensrcl . 

The Law of Evolution. 

The Law of Evolution (continued). 



Philosophy Defined. 
The Data of Philosophy. 



Space, Time, Matter, Motion, and 

Force. 
The Indestructibility of Matter. 
The Continuity of Motion. 
The Persistence of Force. 



The Correlation and Equivalence 

of Forces. 
The Direction of Motion. 
The Rhythm of Motion. 



Evolu- 



tion. 



The Instability of the Homoge- 
neous. 
The Multiplication of Effects. 
Differentiation and Integration. 
Equilibration. 

Summary and Conclusion. 



Space, Time, Matter, Motion, and 
Force. 

The Indestructibility of Matter. 

The Continuity of Motion. 

The Persistence of Force. 

The Persistence of Relations among 
Forces. 

The Transformation and Equiva- 
lence of Forces. 

The Direction of Motion. 

The Rhythm of Motion. 

Recapitulation, Criticism, and Re- 
commencement. 

Evolution and Dissolution. 

Simple and Compound Evolution. 

The Law of Evolution. 

The Law of Evolution 
(continued). 

The Law of Evolution 
(continued). 

The Law of Evolution (concluded). 

The Interpretation of Evolution. 

The Instability of the Homoge- 
neous. 

The Multiplication of Effects. 

Segregation. 

Equilibration. 

Dissolution. 

Summary and Conclusion (Re- 
written). 



Re-ar- 
ranged 
with ad- 
ditions. 



Of conrse throughout this re-organized Second Part 
the numbers of the sections have been changed and hence 



PREFACE TS© THE SECOND EDITION. 



XV 



those who possess the Principles of Biology, in which many 
references are made to passages in First Principles, would 
be inconvenienced by the want of correspondence between 
the numbers of the sections in the original edition and in the 
new edition, were they without any means of identifying the 
sections as now numbered. The annexed list, showing which 
section answers to which in the two editions, will meet the 
requirement : — 



First Second 
Edit. Edit. 

§43 §119 

44 117 

45 118 

46 120 

47 121 

48 122 

49 123 

50 124 

51 125 

52 126 

53 128 

54 129 
130 
131 
132 
133 
134 
135 
136 
137 



55 < 



First 


Second 


Edit. 


Edit. 




rio7 




108 




109 




110 


§56- 


111 




112 




113 




114 




115 


61 


46 


62 


47 


63 


48 


64 


49 


65 


50 


6Q 


52 


67 


53 


68 


54 


69 


55 


70 


56 


71 


57 



First Second 
Edit. Edit. 



}72 
73 
74 
75 
76 
77 
78 
79 
80 
81 
82 
83 
84 
85 
86 
87 
88 
89 
90 
91 



§58 
59 
60 
61 
62 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 
72 
73 
74 
75 
76 
77 
78 
79 
80 



First 
Edit. 

§92 
93 


Second 
Edit, 

§81 
82 


94 


83 


95 


84 


96 


85 


97 


86 


98 


87 


99 


88 


109 


149 


110 


150 


111 


151 


112 


152 


113 


153 


114 


154 


115 


155 


116 


156 


117 


157 


118 


158 


119 


159 


120 


160 



First Second 
Edit. Edit. 

§121 §161 

122 162 

123 163 

124 164 

125 165 

126 166 

127 167 

128 168 

129 169 

130 170 

131 171 

132 172 

133 173 

134 174 

135 175 

136 176 

■7 

137 ' 



(17' 

(18; 



183 

144 193 

145 194 



The original stereotype plates have been used wherever 
it was possible ; and hence the exact correspondence between 
the two editions in many places, even where adjacent pages 
are altered. 



London, JVove?nler, 1867. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



This volume is the first of a series described in a prospectus 
originally distributed in March, 1860. Of that prospectus, 
the annexed is a reprint. 

A SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer proposes to issue in periodical parts a 
connected series of works which he has for several years been 
preparing. Some conception of the general aim and scope of 
this series may be gathered from the following Programme. 

FIRST PRINCIPLES. 

Part I. The Unknowable. — Carrying a step further the 
doctrine put into shape by Hamilton and Mansel; pointing 
out the various directions in which Science leads to the same 
conclusions; and showing that in this united belief in an Ab- 
solute that transcends not only human knowledge but human 
conception, lies the only possible reconciliation of Science 
and Religion. 

Part II. Laws or the Know able. — A statement of the 
ultimate principles discernible throughout all manifestations 
of the Absolute — those highest generalizations now being 
disclosed by Science which are severally true not of one class 
of phenomena but of all classes of phenomena; and which 
are thus the keys to all classes of phenomena.* 

* One of these generalizations is that currently known as " the Conser- 
vation of Force ; " a second may be gathered from a published essay on 
" Progress : its Law and Cause ; " a third is indicated in a paper on 
" Transcendental Physiology ; " and there are several others. u 

xvi 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. X vii 

[In logical order should here come the application of these 
First Principles to Inorganic Nature. But this great division 
it is proposed to pass over : partly because, even without it, the 
scheme is too extensive ; and partly because the interpretation 
of Organic Nature after the proposed method, is of more im- 
mediate importance. The second tvork of the series will there- 
fore be — ] 

THE PEINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY. 

Vol. I. 

Paet I. The Data of Biology. — Including those general 
truths of Physics and Chemistry with which rational Biology 
must set out. 

II. The Inductions of Biology. — A statement of the 
leading generalizations which Naturalists, Physiologists, and 
Comparative Anatomists, have established. 

III. The Evolution of Life. — Concerning the specula- 
tion commonly known as " The Development Hypothesis " — 
its a priori and a posteriori evidences. 

Vol. II. 

IV. Morphological Development. — Pointing out the 
relations that are everywhere traceable between organic forms 
and the average of the various forces to which they are sub- 
ject; and seeking in the cumulative effects of such forces a 
theory of the forms. 

V. Physiological Development. — The progressive dif- 
ferentiation of functions similarly traced; and similarly in- 
terpreted as consequent upon the exposure of different parts 
of organisms to different sets of conditions. 

VI. The Laws of Multiplication. — Generalizations re- 
specting the rates of reproduction of the various classes of 
plants and animals; followed by an attempt to show the de- 
pendence of these variations upon certain necessary causes.* 

*The ideas to be developed in the second volume of the Principles of 
Biology the writer has already briefly expressed in sundry Review-Arti- 
cles. Part IV. will work out a doctrine suggested in a paper on "The 



Xviii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

THE PKINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Vol. I. 

Part I. The Data of Psychology. — Treating of the 
general connexions of Mind and Life and their relations to 
other modes of the Unknowable. 

II. The Inductions of Psychology. — A digest of such 
generalizations respecting mental phenomena as have already 
been empirically established. 

III. General Synthesis. — A republication, with addi- 
tional chapters, of the same part in the already-published Prin- 
ciples of Psychology. 

IV. Special Synthesis. — A republication, with exten- 
sive revisions and additions, of the same part, &c. &c. 

V. Physical Synthesis. — An attempt to show the man- 
ner in which the succession of states of consciousness con- 
forms to a certain fundamental law of nervous action that 
follows from the First Principles laid down at the outset. 

Vol. II. 

VI. Special Analysis. — As at present published, but 
further elaborated by some additional chapters. 

VII. General Analysis. — As at present published, with 
several explanations and additions. 

VIII. Corollaries.- — Consisting in part of a number of 
derivative principles which form a necessary introduction to 
Sociology.* 

Laws of Organic Form," published in the Medico- Chirurgtcal Review 
for January, 1859. The germ of Part V. is contained in the essay on 
" Transcendental Physiology : " See Essays, pp. 280-90. And in Part VI. 
will be unfolded certain views crudely expressed in a " Theory of Popula- 
tion," published in the Westminster Review for April, 1852. 

* Respecting the several additions to be made to the Principles of 
Psychology, it seems needful only to say that Part V". is the unwritten 
division named in the preface to that work — a division of which the 
germ is contained in a note on page 544, and of which the scope has since 
been more definitely stated in a paper in the Medico- Chirurgtcal Review 
for Jan. 1859. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. x ix 



THE PEIXCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY. 

Vol. I. 

Part I. The Data of Sociology. — A statement of the 
several sets of factors entering into social phenomena — human 
ideas and feelings considered in their necessary order of evo- 
lution; surrounding natural conditions; and those ever com- 
plicating conditions to which Society itself gives origin. 

II. The Inductions of Sociology. — General facts, struc- 
tural and functional, as gathered from a survey of Societies 
and their changes: in other words, the empirical generaliza- 
tions that are arrived at by comparing different societies, and 
successive phases of the same society. 

III. Political Orgaxizatiox. — The evolution of gov- 
ernments, general and local, as determined by natural causes; 
their several types and metamorphoses; their increasing com- 
plexity and specialization; and the progressive limitation of 
their functions. 

Yol. II. 

IV. Ecclesiastical Organization. — Tracing the dif- 
ferentiation of religious government from secular; its suc- 
cessive complications and the multiplication of sects; the 
growth and continued modification of religious ideas, as caused 
by advancing knowledge and changing moral character; and 
the gradual reconciliation of these ideas with the truths of 
abstract science, 

Y. Ceremonial Orgaxizatiox. — The natural history of 
that third kind of government which, having a common root 
with the others, and slowly becoming separate from and sup- 
plementary to them, serves to regulate the minor actions of 
life. 

VI. Industrial Organization. — The development of 
productive and distributive agencies, considered, like the fore- 
going, in iis necessary causes: comprehending not only the 
progressive division of labour, and the increasing complexity 
of each industrial agency, but also the successive forms of 



xx PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

industrial .government as passing through like phases with 
political government. 

Vol. III. 

VII. Lingual Pkogeess. — The evolution of Languages 
regarded as a psychological process determined by social con- 
ditions. 

VIII. Intellectual Pkogeess. — Treated from the same 
point of view: including the growth of classifications; the 
evolution of science out of common knowledge; the advance 
from qualitive to quantative prevision, from the indefinite 
to the definite, and from the concrete to the abstract. 

IX. ./Esthetic Pkogeess. — The Fine Arts similarly dealt 
with: tracing their gradual differentiation from primitive in- 
stitutions and from each other; their increasing varieties of 
development; and their advance in reality of expression and 
superiority of aim. 

X. Mokal Peogeess. — Exhibiting the genesis of the slow 
emotional modifications which human nature undergoes in its 
adaptation to the social state. 

XL The Consensus. — Treating of the necessary inter- 
dependence of structures and of functions in each type of so- 
ciety, and in the successive phases of social development.* 

* Of this treatise on Sociology a few small fragments may be found in 
already-published essays. Some of the ideas to be developed in Part II 
are indicated in an article on " The Social Organism," contained in the 
last number of the Westminster Review ; those which Part V. will work 
out, may be gathered from the first half of a paper written some years 
since on " Manners and Fashion ; " of Part VIII. the germs are contained in 
an article on the " Genesis of Science ; " two papers on " The Origin and 
Function of Music " and "The Philosophy of Style," contain some ideas 
to be embodied in Part IX. ; and from a criticism of Mr. Bain's work on 
" The Emotions and the Will," in the last number of the Medico-Chirur- 
gical Review, the central idea to be developed in Part X. may be inferred. 



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. X xi 

THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY. 

Vol. I. 

Part I. The Data or Morality. — Generalizations fur- 
nished by Biology, Psychology and Sociology, which underlie 
a true theory of right living: in other words, the elements of 
that equilibrium between constitution and conditions of ex- 
istence, which is at once the moral ideal and the limit towards 
which we are progressing. 

II. The Inductions of Morality. — Those empirically- 
established rules of human action which are registered as es- 
sential laws by all civilized nations: that is to say — the gen- 
eralizations of expediency. 

III. Personal Morals. — The principles of private con- 
duct — physical, intellectual, moral and religious — that follow 
from the conditions to complete individual life: or, what is 
the same thing — those modes of private action which must 
result from the eventual equilibration of internal desires and 
external needs. 

Vol. II. 

IV. Justice. — The mutual limitations of men's actions 
necessitated by their co-existence as units of a society — limita- 
tions, the perfect observance of which constitutes that state 
of equilibrium forming the goal of political progress. 

V. Negative Beneficence. — Those secondary limita- 
tions, similarly necessitated, which, though less important and 
not cognizable by law, are yet requisite to prevent mutual 
destruction of happiness in various indirect ways: in other 
words? — those minor self-restraints dictated by what may be 
called passive sympathy. 

VI. Positive Beneficence. — Comprehending all modes 
of conduct, dictated by active sympathy, which imply pleasure 
in giving pleasure — modes of conducl thai social adaptation 
has induced and mufirf render ever more general; and which. 



xxii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

in becoming universal, must fill to the full the possible meas- 
ure of human happiness.* 

In anticipation of the obvious criticism that the scheme 
here sketched out is too extensive, it may be remarked that an 
exhaustive treatment of each topic is not intended; but simply 
the establishment of principles, with such illustrations as are 
needed to make their bearings fully understood. It may also 
be pointed out that, besides minor fragments, one large divis- 
ion (The Principles of Psychology) is already, in great part, 
executed. And a further reply is, that impossible though it 
may prove to execute the whole, yet nothing can be said against 
an attempt to set forth the First Principles and to carry their 
applications as far as circumstances permit. 

The price per Number to be half-a-crown; that is to say, 
the four Numbers yearly issued to be severally delivered, post 
free, to all annual subscribers of Ten Shillings. 

* Part IV. of the Principles of Morality will be co-extensive (though 
not identical) with the first half of the writer's Social Statics. 



This programme I have thought well to reprint for two 
reasons: — the one being that readers may, from time to 
time, be able to ascertain what topics are next to be dealt 
with; the other being that an outline of the scheme may 
remain, in case it should never be completed. 

The successive instalments of which this volume consists, 
were issued to the subscribers at the following dates : — Part 
I. (pp. 1—80) in October, 1860; Part II. (pp. 81—176) in 
January, 1861; Part III. (pp. 177—256) in April, 1861; 
Part IV. (pp. 257—334) in October, 1861; Part V. (pp. 
335—416) in March, 1862; and Part VI. (pp. 417—504) in 
June, 1862.* 

London, June 5th, 1862. 

* These dates and pagings of the divisions as originally issued, of 
course do not apply to the volume as it now stands, beyond page 123. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I.— THE UNKNOWABLE. 

CHAP. 

I. RELIGION AND SCIENCE 

II. ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS 

III. ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS 

IV. — THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE 

V. THE RECONCILIATION .... 



PAGE 

3 

20 

49 

TO 

100 



PAET II.— THE KXOWABLE. 

I. — PHILOSOPHY DEFINED 120 

II. — THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY . . . .137 

in. — space, time, matter, motion, and force . 101 

IV. — THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER . . .170 

V. — THE CONTINUITY of MOTION .... 1S4 

VI. — THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE . . . .194 

VII. — Tin; PERSISTENCE OF RELATIONS AMONG FORCES. 20l 

VIII. — Till': TRANSFORMATION AM) EQUIVALENCE OF 

FORCES I'm;, 

IV — THE DIRECTION OF MOTION .... 232 

X. — THE RHYTHM OF MOTION ..... 259 

xxiii 



XXIV 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. 

XI.- 



XII- 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 



MENT 

-EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION 

— SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION . 

THE LAW OF EVOLUTION . 

THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED 

THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED 

THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED 

— THE INTERPRETATION OF EVOLUTION 

THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS 

THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS 

SEGREGATION .... 

, EQUILIBRATION 

DISSOLUTION .... 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 



PART I 



THE UNKNOWABLE. 









CHAPTEE I. 

HELIGIOX AXD SCIENCE. 

§ 1. TTe too often forget that not only is there " a soul 
of goodness in things evil/' but very generally also, a soul of 
truth in things erroneous. While many admit the abstract 
probability that a falsity has usually a nucleus of reality, 
few bear this abstract probability in mind, when passing 
judgment on the opinions of others. A belief that is finally 
proved to be grossly at variance with fact, is cast aside with 
indignation or contempt; and in the heat of antagonism 
scarcely any one inquires what there was in this belief which 
commended it to men's minds. Yet there must have been 
something. And there is reason to suspect that this some- 
thing was its correspondence with certain of their expe- 
riences: an extremely limited or vague correspondence 
perhaps; but still, a correspondence. Even the absurdest re- 
port may in nearly every instance be traced to an actual oc- 
currence; and had there been no such actual occurrence, 
this preposterous misrepresentation of it would never have 
existed. Though the distorted or magnified image trans- 
mittal to us through the refracting medium of rumour, 
is utterly unlike the reality; yet in the absence of the real- 
ity there would have l»een no distorted or magnified image. 
And thus it is with human beliefs in general. Entirely 
wrong as they may appear, the implication is that they 
germinated out of actual experiences originally contained, 
and perhaps still contain, Borne small amount of verity. 

More especially may we safely assume this, in the case 

a 



4 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

of beliefs that have long existed and are widely diffused; 
and most of all so, in the case of beliefs that are perennial 
and nearly or quite universal. The presumption that any 
current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength accord- 
ing to the number of its adherents. Admitting, as we must, 
that life is impossible unless through a certain agreement be- 
tween internal convictions and external circumstances; ad- 
mitting therefore that the probabilities are always in favour 
of the truth, or at least the partial truth, of a conviction ; we 
must admit that the convictions entertained by many minds 
in common are the most likely to have some foundation. 
The elimination of individual errors of thought, must give 
to the resulting judgment a certain additional value. It 
may indeed be urged that many widely-spread beliefs are 
received on authority; that those entertaining them make 
no attempts at verification; and hence it may be inferred 
that the multitude of adherents adds but little to the proba- 
bility of a belief. But this is not true. For a belief which 
gains extensive reception without critical examination, is 
thereby proved to have a general congruity with the various 
other. beliefs of those who receive it; and in so far as these 
various other beliefs are based upon personal observation 
and judgment, they give an indirect warrant to one with 
which they harmonize. It may be that this warrant is of 
small value; but still it is of some value. 

Could we reach definite views on this matter, they would 
be extremely useful to us. It is important that we should, if 
possible, form something like a general theory of current 
opinions; so that we may neither over-estimate nor under- 
estimate their worth. Arriving at correct judgments on dis- 
puted questions, much depends on the attitude of mind we 
preserve while listening to, or taking part in, the contro- 
versy; and for the preservation of a right attitiide, it is 
needful that we should learn how true, and yet how untrue, 
are average human beliefs. On the one hand, we must 
keep free from that bias in favour of received ideas which 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 5 

expresses itself in such dogmas as " What every one says 
must be true," or " The voice of the people is the voice of 
God." On the other hand, the fact disclosed by a survey 
of the past, that majorities have usually been wrong, must 
not blind us to the complementary fact, that majorities 
have usually not been entirely wrong. And the avoidance 
of these extremes being a prerequisite to catholic thinking, 
we shall do well to provide ourselves with a safe-guard 
against them, by making a valuation of opinions in the ab- 
stract. To this end we must contemplate the kind of rela- 
tion that ordinarily subsists between opinions and facts. 
Let us do so with one of those beliefs which under various 
forms has prevailed among all nations in all times. 

§ 2. The earliest traditions represent rulers as gods or 
demigods. By their subjects, primitive kings were regarded 
as superhuman in origin, and superhuman in power. They 
possessed divine titles; received obeisances like those made 
before the altars of deities; and were in some cases actually 
worshipped. If there needs proof that the divine and half- 
divine characters originally ascribed to monarchs were as- 
cribed literally, we have it in the fact that there are still 
existing savage races, among whom it is held that the chiefs 
and their kindred are of celestial origin, or, as elsewhere, 
that only the chiefs have souls. And of course along with 
beliefs of this kind, there existed a belief in the unlimited 
power of the ruler over his subjects — an absolute possession 
of them, extending even to the taking of their lives at will: 
as even -till in Fiji, where a victim stands unbound to be 
killed al the word of his chief; himself declaring, "what- 
ever the king says musl be done." 

In times and among races somewhat less barbarous, we 
find these beliefs a little modified. The monarch, instead of 
being literally thought god or demigod, is conceived to be a 
man having divine authority, with perhaps more or le- 
divine nature. Be retains however, as In the East to the 



6 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

present day, titles expressing his heavenly descent or rela- 
tionships ; and is still sainted in forms and words as humble 
as those addressed to the Deity. While the lives and prop- 
erties of his people, if not practically so completely at his 
mercy, are still in theory supposed to be his. 

Later in the progress of civilization, as during the mid- 
dle ages in Europe, the current opinions respecting the rela- 
tionship of rulers and ruled are further changed. For the 
theory of divine origin, there is substituted that of divine 
right. ISTo longer god or demigod, or even god-descended, 
the king is now regarded as simply Grod's vice-gerent. The 
obeisances made to him are not so extreme in their humility; 
and his sacred titles lose much of their meaning. Moreover 
his authority ceases to be unlimited. Subjects deny his 
right to dispose at will of their lives and properties; and 
yield allegiance only in the shape of obedience to his com- 
mands. 

With advancing political opinion has come still greater 
restriction of imperial power. Belief in the supernatural 
character of the ruler, long ago repudiated by ourselves for 
example, has left behind it nothing more than the popular 
tendency to ascribe unusual goodness, wisdom, and beauty 
to the monarch. Loyalty, which originally meant implicit 
submission to the king's will, now means a merely nominal 
profession of subordination, and the fulfilment of certain 
forms of respect. Our political practice, and our political 
theory, alike utterly reject those regal prerogatives which 
once passed unquestioned. By deposing some, and putting 
others in their places, we have not only denied the divine 
rights of certain men to rule ; but we have denied that they 
have any rights beyond those originating in the assent of the 
nation. Though our forms of speech and our state-docu- 
ments still assert the subjection of the citizens to the ruler, 
our actual beliefs and our daily proceedings implicitly assert 
the contrary. We obey no laws save those of our own mak- 
ing. We have entirely divested the monarch of legislative 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 7 

power ; and should immediately rebel against his or her ex- 
ercise of such power, even in matters of the smallest con- 
cern. In brief, the aboriginal doctrine is all but extinct 
among us. 

Xor has the rejection of primitive political beliefs, re- 
sulted only in transferring the authority of an autocrat to a 
representative body. The views entertained respecting 
governments in general, of whatever form, are now widely 
different from those once entertained. Whether popular or 
despotic, governments were in ancient times supposed to 
have unlimited authority over their subjects. Individuals 
existed for the benefit of the State; not the State for the 
benefit of individuals. In our days, however, not only 
has the national will been in many cases substituted for the 
will of the king; but the exercise of this national will has 
been restricted to a much smaller sphere. In England, for 
instance, though there has been established no definite the- 
ory setting bounds to governmental authority ; yet, in prac- 
tice, sundry bounds have been set to it which are tacitly rec- 
ognized by all. There is no organic law formally declaring 
that the legislature may not freely dispose of the citizen's 
lives, as early kings did when they sacrificed hecatombs of 
victims; but were it possible for our legislature to attempt 
such a thing, its own destruction would be the consequence, 
rather than the destruction of citizens. How entirely we 
have established the personal liberties of the subject against 
the invasions of State-power, would be quickly demon- 
strated, were it proposed by Act of Parliament forcibly to 
take possession of the nation, or of any class, and turn its 
service- to public ends; as the services of the people were 
turned by primitive rulers. And should any statesman sug- 
gest ;i re-distribution of property such as was sometimes 
made in ancient democratic communities, he would be met 
by a thousand-tongued denial of imperial power over in- 
dividual possessions. Xot only in our day have these 
fundamental claims of the citizen been thus made good 



8 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

against the State, but sundry minor claims likewise. Ages 
ago, laws regulating dress and mode of living fell into dis- 
use; and any attempt to revive them would prove the cur- 
rent opinion to be, that such matters lie beyond the sphere 
of legal control. For some centuries we have been asserting 
in practice, and have now established in theory, the right of 
every man to choose his own religious beliefs, instead of re- 
ceiving such beliefs on State-authority. Within the last few 
generations we have inaugurated complete liberty of speech, 
in spite of all legislative attempts to suppress or limit it. 
And still more recently we have claimed and finally ob- 
tained under a few exceptional restrictions, freedom to trade 
with whomsoever we please. Thus our political beliefs are 
widely different from ancient ones, not only as to the proper 
depositary of power to be exercised over a nation, but also 
as to the extent of that power. 

Not even here has the change ended. Besides the aver- 
age opinions which we have just described as current among 
ourselves, there exists a less widely-diffused opinion going 
still further in the same direction. There are to be found 
men who contend that the sphere of government should be 
narrowed even more than it is in England. The modern 
doctrine that the State exists for the benefit of citizens, 
which has now in a great measure supplanted the ancient 
doctrine that the citizens exist for the benefit of the State, 
they would push to its logical results. They hold that the 
freedom of the individual, limited only by the like freedom 
of other individuals, is sacred ; and that the legislature can- 
not equitably put further restrictions upon it, either by for- 
bidding any actions which the law of equal freedom permits, 
or taking away any property save that required to pay the 
cost of enforcing this law itself. They assert that the sole 
function of the State is the protection of persons against 
each other, and against a foreign foe. They urge that as, 
throughout civilization, the manifest tendency has been 
continually to extend the liberties of the subject, and re- 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 9 

strict the functions of the State, there is reason to believe 
that the ultimate political condition must be one in which 
personal freedom is the greatest possible and governmental 
power the least possible: that, namely, in which the free- 
dom of each has no limit but the like freedom of all ; while 
the sole governmental duty is the maintenance of this limit. 
Here then in different times and places we find concern- 
ing the origin, authority, and functions of government, 
a great variety of opinions — opinions of which the leading 
genera above indicated subdivide into countless species. 
"What now must be said about the truth or falsity of these 
opinions? Save among a few barbarous tribes the notion 
that a monarch is a god or demigod is regarded throughout 
the world as an absurdity almost passing the bounds of 
human credulity. In but few places does there survive a 
vague notion that the ruler possesses any supernatural at- 
tributes. Most civilized communities, which still admit the 
divine right of governments, have long since repudiated the 
divine right of kings. Elsewhere the belief that there is 
anything sacred in legislative regulations is dying out: laws 
are coming to be considered as conventional only. While 
the extreme school holds that governments have neither in- 
trinsic authority, nor can have authority given to them by 
convention; but can possess authority only as the adminis- 
trators of those moral principles deducible from the condi- 
tions essential to social life. Of these various beliefs, with 
their innumerable modifications, must we then say that some 
one alone is wholly right and all the rest wholly wrong; or 
must we say that each of them contains truth more or less 
completely disguised by errors? The latter alternative is 
the one which analysis will force upon us. Ridiculous as 
they may severally appear to those not educa ted under them, 
every one of these doctrines lias for its vital element the rec- 
ognition of an unquestionable fact. Directly or by impli- 
cation, each of them insists on a certain subordination of 
individual actions to social requirements. There are wide 



10 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

differences as to the power to which this subordination is 
due ; there are wide differences as to the motive for this sub- 
ordination; there are wide differences as to its extent; but 
that there must be some subordination all are agreed. From 
the oldest and rudest idea of allegiance, down to the most 
advanced political theory of our own day, there is on this 
point complete unanimity. Though, between the savage 
who conceives his life and property to be at the absolute dis- 
posal of his chief, and the anarchist who denies the right of 
any government, autocratic or democratic, to trench upon 
his individual freedom, there seems at first sight an entire 
and irreconcilable antagonism; yet ultimate analysis dis- 
closes in them this fundamental community of opinion; 
that there are limits which individual actions may not trans- 
gress — limits which the one regards as originating in the 
king's will, and which the other regards as deducible from 
the equal claims of fellow-citizens. 

It may perhaps at first sight seem that we here reach a 
very unimportant conclusion; namely, that a certain tacit 
assumption is equally implied in all these conflicting politi- 
cal creeds — an assumption which is indeed of self-evident 
validity. The question, however, is not the value or nov- 
elty of the particular truth in this case arrived at. My aim 
has been to exhibit the more general truth, which we are apt 
to overlook, that between the most opposite beliefs there is 
usually something in common, — something taken for 
granted by each; and that this something, if not to be set 
down as an unquestionable verity, may yet be considered to 
have the highest degree of probability. A postulate which, 
like the one above instanced, is not consciously asserted but 
unconsciously involved; and which is unconsciously in- 
volved not by one man or body of men, but by numerous 
bodies of men who diverge in countless ways and degrees in 
the rest of their beliefs ; has a warrant far transcending any 
that can be usually shown. And when, as in this case, the 
postulate is abstract — is not based on some one concrete ex- 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. H 

perience common to all mankind, but implies an induction 
from a great variety of experiences, we may say that it 
ranks next in certainty to the postulates of exact science. 

Do we not thns arrive at a generalization which may 
habitually guide us when seeking for the soul of truth in 
things erroneous? While the foregoing illustration brings 
clearly home the fact, that in opinions seeming to be abso- 
lutely and supremely wrong something right is yet to be 
found; it also indicates the method we should pursue in 
seeking the something right. This method is to compare 
all opinions of the same genus; to set aside as more or less 
discrediting one another those various special and concrete 
elements in which such opinions disagree; to observe what 
remains after the discordant constituents have been elimi- 
nated; and to find for this remaining constituent that ab- 
stract expression which holds true throughout its divergent 
modifications. 

§ 3. A candid acceptance of this general principle and 
an adoption of the course it indicates, will greatly aid us in 
dealing with those chronic antagonisms by which men are 
divided. Applying it not only to current ideas with which 
we are personally unconcerned, but also to our own ideas 
and those of our opponents, we shall be led to form far more 
correct judgments. We shall be ever ready to suspect that 
the convictions we entertain are not wholly right, and that 
the adverse convictions are not wholly wrong. On the one 
hand we shall not, in common with the great mass of the 
unthinking, let our beliefs be determined by the mere acci- 
dent of birth in a particular age on a particular part of the 
Earth's surface; and, on the other hand, we shall be Baved 
from that error of entire and contemptuous negation, which 
is fallen into by most who take up an attitude of independ- 
ent criticism. 

Of all antagonisms of belief, the oldest, the widest, the 
mosl profound and the most important, [g thai between Re- 



12 KELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

ligion and Science. It commenced when the recognition of 
the simplest uniformities in surrounding things, set a limit 
to the once universal superstition. It shows itself every- 
where throughout the domain of human knowledge : affect- 
ing men's interpretations alike of the simplest mechanical 
accidents and of the most complicated events in the histories 
of nations. It has its roots deep down in the diverse habits 
of thought of different orders of minds. And the conflicting 
conceptions of nature and life which these diverse habits of 
thought severally generate, influence for good or ill the tone 
of feeling and the daily conduct. 

An unceasing battle of opinion like this which has been 
carried on throughout all ages under the banners of Relig- 
ion and Science, has of course generated an animosity fatal 
to a just estimate of either party by the other. On a larger 
scale, and more intensely than any other controversy, has it 
illustrated that perennially significant fable concerning the 
knights who fought about the colour of a shield of which 
neither looked at more than one face. Each combatant see- 
ing clearly his own aspect of the question, has charged his 
opponent with stupidity or dishonesty in not seeing the same 
aspect of it; while each has wanted the candour to go over 
to his opponent's side and find out how it was that he saw 
everything so differently. 

Happily the times display an increasing catholicity of 
feeling, which we shall do well in carrying as far as our na- 
tures permit. In proportion as we love truth more and vic- 
tory less, we shall become anxious to know what it is which 
leads our opponents to think as they do. We shall begin 
to suspect that the pertinacity of belief exhibited by them 
must result from a perception of something we have not per- 
ceived. And we shall aim to supplement the portion of 
truth we have found with the portion found by them. Mak- 
ing a more rational estimate of human authority, we shall 
avoid alike the extremes of undue submission and undue re- 
bellion — shall not regard some men's judgments as wholly 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 13 

good and others as wholly bad ; but shall rather lean to the 
more defensible position that none are completely right and 
none are completely wrong. 

Preserving, as far as may be, this impartial attitude, let 
us then contemplate the two sides of this great controversy. 
Keeping guard against the bias of education and shutting 
out the whisperings of sectarian feeling, let us consider what 
are the d jyriori probabilities in favour of each party. 

§ 4. When duly realized, the general principle above 
illustrated must lead us to anticipate that the diverse forms 
of religious belief which have existed and which still exist, 
have all a basis in some ultimate fact. Judging by analogy 
the implication is, not that any one of them is altogether 
right; but that in each there is something right more or less 
disguised by other things wrong. It may be that the soul 
of truth contained in erroneous creeds is very unlike most, if 
not all, of its several embodiments; and indeed, if, as we 
have good reason to expect, it is much more abstract than 
any of them, its unlikeness necessarily follows. But how- 
ever different from its concrete expressions, some essential 
verity must be looked for. To suppose that these multi- 
form conceptions should be one and all absolutely ground- 
less, discredits too profoundly that average human intel- 
ligence from which all our individual intelligences arc 
inherited. 

This most genera] reason we shall find enforced by other 
more special ones. To the presumption that a number of 
diverse beliefs of the same class have souk 1 common founda- 
tion in fact, musi in this case be added a further presump- 
tion derived from the omnipresence of the beliefs. Reli- 
gious ideas of one kind or other arc almost universal. Ad 
mitting thai in many place-; there are tribes who have no 
theory of creation, no word inv a deity, no propitiatory acts, 
no idea of another life-— admitting that only when a certain 
phase of intelligence Is reached do the most rudimentary 



14 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

of such theories make their appearance; the implication is 
practically the same. Grant that among all races who have 
passed a certain stage of intellectual development there are 
found vague notions concerning the origin and hidden na- 
ture of surrounding things; and there arises the inference 
that such notions are necessary products of progressing 
intelligence. Their endless variety serves but to strengthen 
this conclusion: showing as it does a more or less inde- 
pendent genesis — showing how, in different places and 
times, like conditions have led to similar trains of thought, 
ending in analogous results. That these countless different, 
and yet allied, phenomena presented by all religions are 
accidental or factitious, is an untenable supposition. A 
candid examination of the evidence quite negatives the doc- 
trine maintained by some, that creeds are priestly inven- 
tions. Even as a mere question of probabilities it cannot 
rationally be concluded that in every society, past and pres- 
ent, savage and civilized, certain members of the commu- 
nity have combined to delude the rest, in ways so analogous. 
To any who may allege that some primitive fiction was de- 
vised by some primitive priesthood, before yet mankind had 
diverged from a common centre, a reply is furnished by 
philology; for philology proves the dispersion of mankind 
to have commenced before there existed a language suffi- 
ciently organized to express religious ideas. Moreover, 
were it otherwise tenable, the hypothesis of artificial origin 
fails to account for the facts. It does not explain why, 
under all changes of form, certain elements of religious be- 
lief remain constant. It does not show us how it happens 
that while adverse criticism has from age to age gone on 
destroying particular theological dogmas, it has not de- 
stroyed the fundamental conception underlying these dog- 
mas. It leaves us without any solution of the striking 
circumstance that when, from the absurdities and corrup- 
tions accumulated around them, national creeds have fallen 
into general discredit, ending in indifferentism or positive 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 15 

denial, there has always by and by arisen a re-assertion of 
them: if not the same in form, still the same in essence. 
Thus the universality of religious ideas, their independent 
evolution among different primitive races, and their great 
vitality, unite in showing that their source must be deep- 
seated instead of superficial. In other words, we are obliged 
to admit that if not supernaturally derived as the majority 
contend, they must be derived out of human experiences, 
slowly accumulated and organized. 

Should it be asserted that religious ideas are products of 
the religious sentiment, which, to satisfy itself, prompts 
imaginations that it afterwards projects into the external 
world, and by and by mistakes for realities; the problem is 
not solved, but only removed further back. Whether the 
wish is father to the thought, or whether sentiment and idea 
have a common genesis, there equally arises the question — 
Whence comes the sentiment? That it is a constituent in 
man's nature is implied by the hypothesis; and cannot in- 
deed be denied by those who prefer other hypotheses. And 
if the religious sentiment, displayed habitually by the ma- 
jority of mankind, and occasionally aroused even in those 
seemingly devoid of it, must be classed among human emo- 
tions, we cannot rationally ignore it. We are bound to ask 
its origin and its function. Here is an attribute which, to 
say the least, has had an enormous influence — which has 
played a conspicuous part throughout the entire past as far 
back as history records, and is at present the life of numer- 
ous institutions, the stimulus to perpetual controversies, and 
the prompter of countless daily actions. Any Theory of 
Things which takes no account of this attribute, must, then, 
be extremely defective. If with no other view, still as a 
question in philosophy, we are called on to say what this 
attribute means; and we cannot decline the task without 
confessing our philosophy to be incompetent. 

Two suppositions only are open to us: the one thai the 
feeling which responds to religious ideas resulted, along 



16 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

with, all other human faculties, from an act of special crea- 
tion; the other that it, in common with the rest, arose by a 
process of evolution. If we adopt the first of these alterna- 
tives, universally accepted by our ancestors and by the im- 
mense majority of our contemporaries, the matter is at once 
settled: man is directly endowed with the religious feeling 
by a creator; and to that creator it designedly responds. 
If we adopt the second alternative, then we are met by the 
questions — What are the circumstances to which the genesis 
of the religious feeling is due ? and — What is its office VWe 
are bound to entertain these questions; and we are bound 
to find answers to them. Considering all faculties, as we 
must on this supposition, to result from accumulated modifi- 
cations caused by the intercourse of the organism with its 
environment, we are obliged to admit that there exist in the 
environment certain phenomena or conditions which have 
determined the growth of the feeling in question; and so 
are obliged to admit that it is as normal as any other faculty. 
Add to which that as, on the hypothesis of a development of 
lower forms into higher, the end toward which the pro- 
gressive changes directly or indirectly tend, must be adapta- 
tion to the requirements of existence ; we are also forced to 
infer that this feeling is in some way conducive to human 
welfare. Thus both alternatives contain the same ultimate 
implication. We must conclude that the religious sentiment 
is either directly created, or is cieated by the slow action of 
natural causes; and whichever of these conclusions we 
adopt, requires us to treat the religious sentiment with re- 
spect. 

One other consideration should not be overlooked — a 
consideration which students of Science more especially 
need to have pointed out. '■ Occupied as such are with estab- 
lished truths, and accustomed to regard things not already 
known as things to be hereafter discovered, they are liable 
to forget that information, however extensive it may be- 
come, can never satisfy inquiry. Positive knowledge does 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 17 

not, and never can, fill the whole region of possible thought. 
At the uttermost reach of discovery there arises, and must 
ever arise, the question — "What lies beyond? As it is im- 
possible to think of a limit to space so as to exclude the idea 
of space lying outside that limit; so we cannot conceive of 
any explanation profound enough to exclude the question — 
"What is the explanation of that explanation? Regarding 
Science as a gradually increasing sphere, we may say that 
every addition to its surface does but bring it into a wider 
contact with surrounding nescience. There must ever re- 
main therefore two antithetical modes of mental action. 
Throughout all future time, as now, the human mind may 
occupy itself, not only with ascertained phenomena .and 
their relations, but also with that unascertained some- 
thing which phenomena and their relations imply. Hence 
if knowledge cannot monopolize consciousness — if it 
must always continue possible for the mind to dwell 
upon that which transcends knowledge ; then there 
can never cease to be a place for something of the 
nature of Religion ; since Religion under all its forms 
is distinguished from everything else in this, that its 
subject matter is that which passes the sphere of ex- 
perience. 

Thus, however untenable may be any or all the existing 
religious creeds, however gross the absurdities associated 
with them, however irrational the arguments set forth in 
their defence, we must not ignore the verity which in all 
likelihood lies hidden within them. The general probabil- 
ity that widely-spread beliefs are not absolutely baseless, is 
in this case enforced by further probability due to the omni- 
presence of the beliefs. In the existence of a religious sen- 
timent, whatever be its origin, we have a second evidence 
of great significance. And as in that nescience which must 
ever remain the antithesis to science, there is a sphere for 
the exercise of this sentiment, we find a third general fact 
of like implication. We may be sure therefore that re- 



18 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

ligions, though even none of them be actually true, are yet 
all adumbrations of a truth. 

§ 5. As, to the religious, it will seem absurd to set forth 
any justification for Religion; so, to the scientific, will it 
seem absurd to defend Science. Yet to do the last is cer- 
tainly as needful as to do the first. If there exists a class 
who, in contempt of its follies and disgust at its corruptions, 
have contracted towards Religion a repugnance which 
makes them overlook the fundamental verity contained in 
it ; so, too, is there a class offended to such a degree by the de- 
structive criticisms men of science make on the religious ten- 
ets they regard as essential, that they have acquired a strong 
prejudice against Science in general. They are not pre- 
pared with any avowed reasons for their dislike. They 
have simply a remembrance of the rude shakes which Sci- 
ence has given to many of their cherished convictions, and 
a suspicion that it may perhaps eventually uproot all they 
regard as sacred; and hence it produces in them a certain 
inarticulate dread. 

What is Science? To see the absurdity of the prejudice 
against it, we need only remark that Science is simply a 
higher development of common knowledge; and that if 
Science is repudiated, all knowledge must be repudiated 
along with it. The extremest bigot will not suspect any 
harm in the observation that the sun rises earlier and sets 
later in the summer than in the winter; but will rather 
consider such an observation as a useful aid in fulfilling the 
duties of life. "Well, Astronomy is an organized body of 
similar observations, made with greater nicety, extended to 
a larger number of objects, and so analyzed as to disclose the 
real arrangements of the heavens, and to dispel our false 
conceptions of them. That iron will rust in water, that 
wood will burn, that long kept viands become putrid, the 
most timid sectarian will teach without alarm, as things use- 
ful to be known. But these are chemical truths: Chemis- 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 19 

try is a systematized collection of such facts, ascertained 
with precision, and so classified and generalized as to enable 
us to say with certainty, concerning each simple or com- 
pound substance, what change will occur in it under given 
conditions. And thus is it with all the sciences. They sev- 
erally germinate out of the experiences of daily life; insen- 
sibly as they grow they draw in remoter, more numerous, 
and more complex experiences; and among these, they as- 
certain laws of dependence like those which make up our 
knowledge of the most familiar objects. Xo where is it pos- 
sible to draw a line and say — here Science begins. And as 
it is the function of common observation to serve for the 
guidance of conduct; so, too, is the guidance of conduct 
the office of the most recondite and abstract inquiries of 
Science. Through the countless industrial processes and 
the various modes of locomotion which it has given to us, 
Physics regulates more completely our social life than does 
his acquaintance with the properties of surrounding bodies 
regulate the life of the savage. Anatomy and Physiology, 
through their effects on the practice of medicine and hy- 
giene, modify our actions almost as much as does our ac- 
quaintance with the evils and benefits which common en- 
vironing agencies may produce on our bodies. All Science 
is prevision; and all prevision ultimately aids us in greater 
or less degree to achieve the good and avoid the bad. As 
certainly as the perception of an object lying in our path 
warns us against stumbling over it; so certainly do those 
more complicated and subtle perceptions which constitute 
Science, warn us against stumbling over intervening ob- 
stacles in the pursuit of our distant ends. Thus being one 
in origin and function, the simplest forms of cognition and 
the most complex must be dealt with alike. We are bound 
in consistency to receive the widest knowledge which our 
faculties can reach, or to reject along with it that narrow 
knowledge possessed by all. There is no logical alternative 
.between accepting OUT intelligence in its entirety, or re- 



20 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

pudiating even that lowest intelligence which we possess in 
common with brutes. 

To ask the question which more immediately concerns 
our argument — whether Science is substantially true? — is 
much like asking whether the sun gives light. And it is be- 
cause they are conscious how undeniably valid are most of 
its propositions, that the theological party regard Science 
with so much secret alarm. They know that during the two 
thousand years of its growth, some of its larger divisions — 
mathematics, physics, astronomy — have been subject to the 
rigorous criticism of successive generations; and have not- 
withstanding become ever more firmly established. They 
know that, unlike many of their own doctrines, which were 
once universally received but have age by age been more 
frequently called in question, the doctrines of Science, at 
first confined to a few scattered inquirers, have been slowly 
growing into general acceptance, and are now in great part 
admitted as beyond dispute. They know that men of sci- 
ence throughout the world subject each other's results to the 
most searching examination; and that error is mercilessly 
exposed and rejected as soon as discovered. And, finally, 
they know that still more conclusive testimony is to be 
found in the daily verification of scientific predictions, and 
in the never-ceasing triumphs of those arts which Science 
guides. 

To regard with alienation that which has such high 
credentials is a folly. Though in the tone which many of 
the scientific adopt towards them, the defenders of Religion 
may find some excuse for this alienation ; yet the excuse is a 
very insufficient one. On the side of Science, as on their 
own side, they must admit that short-comings in the advo- 
cates do not tell essentially against that which is advocated. 
Science must be judged by itself: and so judged, only the 
most perverted intellect can fail to see that it is worthy of all 
reverence. Be there or be there not any other revelation, 
we have a veritable revelation in Science — a continuous dis- . 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 21 

closure, through the intelligence with which we are en- 
dowed, of the established order of the Universe. This dis- 
closure it is the duty of every one to verify as far as in him 
lies; and having verified, to receive with all humility. 

§ 6. On both sides of this great controversy, then, truth 
must exist. An unbiassed consideration of its general as- 
pects forces us to conclude that Religion, everywhere pres- 
ent as a weft running through the warp of human history, 
expresses some eternal fact ; while it is almost a truism to say 
of Science that it is an organized mass of facts, ever grow- 
ing, and ever being more completely purified from errors. 
And if both have bases in the reality of things, then be- 
tween them there must be a fundamental harmony. It is 
an incredible hypothesis that there are two orders of truth, 
in absolute and everlasting opposition. Only on some 
Manichean theory, which among ourselves no one da-res 
openly avow however much his beliefs may be tainted by it, 
is such a supposition even conceivable. That Religion is 
divine and Science diabolical, is a proposition which, though 
implied in many a clerical declamation, not the most vehe- 
ment fanatic can bring himself distinctly to assert. And 
whoever does not assert this, must admit that under their 
seeming antagonism lies hidden an entire agreement. 

Each side, therefore, has to recognize the claims of the 
other as standing for truths that are not to be ignored. He 
who contemplates the Universe from the religious point of 
view, must Learn to see that this which we call Science is one 
constituent of the greal whole; and as such ought to be re- 
garded with a sentiment like that which the remainder ex- 
cites. While he who contemplates the universe from the 

Scientific point of view, mUSl learn to see thai this which we 

call Religion is similarly a constituent of the greal whole; 
and being Mich, musi he treated as a subject of science with 

no more prejudice than any other reality. It behoves cadi 

party to strive to understand the other, with the conviction 






22 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

that the other has something worthy to be understood ; and 
with the conviction that when mutually recognized this 
something will be the basis of a complete reconciliation. 

How to find this something — how to reconcile them, 
thus becomes the problem which we should perseveringly 
try to solve. Not to reconcile them in any makeshift way — 
not to find one of those compromises we hear from time to 
time proposed, which their proposers must secretly feel are 
artificial and temporary; but to arrive at the terms of a 
real and permanent peace between them. The thing we 
have to seek out, is that ultimate truth which both will avow 
with absolute sincerity — with not the remotest mental reser- 
vation. There shall be no concession — no yielding on 
either side of something that will by and by be reasserted; 
but the common ground on which they meet shall be one 
which each will maintain for itself. We have to discover 
some fundamental verity which Religion will assert, with 
all possible emphasis, in the absence of Science ; and which 
Science, with all possible emphasis, will assert in the absence 
of Religion — some fundamental verity in the defence of 
which each will find the other its ally. 

Or, changing the point of view, our aim must be to co- 
ordinate the seemingly opposed convictions which Religion 
and Science embody. From the coalescence of antagonist 
ideas, each containing its portion of truth, there always 
arises a higher development. As in Geology when the igne- 
ous and aqueous hypotheses were united, a rapid advance 
took place; as in Biology we are beginning to progress 
through the fusion of the doctrine of types with the doctrine 
of adaptations; as in Psychology the arrested growth re- 
commences now that the disciples of Kant and those of 
Locke have both their views recognized in the theory that 
organized experiences produce forms of thought; as in So- 
ciology, now that it is beginning to assume a positive charac- 
ter, we find a recognition of both the party of progress and 
the party of order, as each holding a truth which forms a 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 23 

needful complement to that held by the other; so must it 
be on a grander scale with Religion and Science. Here too 
we must look for a conception which combines the conclu- 
sions of both; and here too we may expect important re- 
sults from their combination. To understand how Science 
and Religion express opposite sides of the same fact — the 
one its near or visible side, and the other its remote or invisi- 
ble side — this it is which we must attempt; and to achieve 
this must profoundly modify our general Theory of Things. 
Already in the foregoing pages the method of seeking 
such a reconciliation has been vaguely foreshadowed. Be- 
fore proceeding further, however, it will be well to treat the 
question of method more definitely. To find that truth in 
which Religion and Science coalesce, we must know in what 
direction to look for it, and what kind of truth it is likely 
to be. 

§ 7. "We have found a prior treason for believing that in 
all religions, even the rudest, there lies hidden a funda- 
mental verity. We have inferred that this fundamental 
verity is that element common to all religions, which re- 
mains after their discordant peculiarities have been mu- 
tually cancelled. And we have further inferred that this 
element is almost certain to be more abstract than any cur- 
rent religious doctrine. Now it is manifest that only in 
some highly abstract proposition, can Religion and Science 
find a common ground. Neither such dogmas as those of 
the trinitarian and unitarian, nor any such idea as that of 
propitiation, common though it may be to all religions, can 
serve as the desired basis of agreement; for Science cannot 
recognize beliefs like these: they lie beyond its sphere. 
Hence we see not only that, judging by analogy, the essen- 
tial truth contained in Religion is that most abstract element 
pervading all its forms; but also that this most alistract cle- 
m< nt is the only one in which Religion is likely to agree 
with Science. 



24 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 

Similarly if we begin at the other end, and inquire what 
scientific truth can unite Science and Religion. It is at once 
manifest that Religion can take no cognizance of special 
scientific doctrines; nor any more than Science can take 
cognizance of special religious doctrines. The truth which 
Science asserts and Religion indorses cannot be one fur- 
nished by mathematics; nor can it be a physical truth; nor 
can it be a truth in chemistry ; it cannot be a truth belong- 
ing to any particular science. !No generalization of the 
phenomena of space, of time, of matter, or of force, can be- 
come a Religious conception. Such a conception, if it any- 
where exists in Science, must be more general than any of 
these — must be one underlying all of them. If there be a 
fact which Science recognizes in common with Religion, it 
must be that fact from which the several branches of Sci- 
ence diverge, as from their common root. 

Assuming then, that since these two great realities are 
constituents of the same mind, and respond to different as- 
pects of the same Universe, there must be a fundamental 
harmony between them; we see good reason to conclude 
that the most abstract truth contained in Religion and the 
most abstract truth contained in Science must be the one in 
which the two coalesce. The largest fact to be found within 
our mental range must be the one of which we are in search. 
Uniting these positive and negative poles of human thought, 
it must be the ultimate fact in our intelligence. 

§ 8. Before proceeding in the search for this common 
datum let me bespeak a little patience. The next three 
chapters, setting out from different points and converging to 
the same conclusion, will be comparatively unattractive. 
Students of philosophy will find in them much that is more 
or less familiar ; and to most of those who are unacquainted 
with the literature of modern metaphysics, they may prove 
somewhat difficult to follow. 

Our argument however cannot dispense with these chap- 



RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 25 

ters; and the greatness of the question at issue justifies even 
a heavier tax on the reader's attention. The matter is one 
which concerns each and all of us more than any other mat- 
ter whatever. Though it affects us little in a direct way, the 
view we arrive at must indirectly affect us in all our rela- 
tions — must determine our conception of the Universe, of 
Life, of Human Xature — must influence our ideas of right 
and wrong, and so modify our conduct. To reach that point 
of view from which the seeming discordance of Religon and 
Science disappears, and the two merge into one, must cause 
a revolution of thought fruitful in beneficial consequences, 
and must surely be worth an effort. 

Here ending preliminaries, let us now address ourselves 
to this all-important inquiry. 



CHAPTEK II. 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 



§ 9. When, on the sea-shore, we note how the hulls of 
distant vessels are hidden below the horizon, and how, of 
•ztill remoter vessels, only the uppermost sails are visible, we 
realize with tolerable clearness the slight curvature of that 
portion of the sea's surface which lies before us. But when 
we seek in imagination to follow out this curved surface as it 
actually exists, slowly bending round until all its meridians 
meet in a point eight thousand miles below our feet, we find 
ourselves utterly baffled. We cannot conceive in its real 
form and magnitude even that small segment of our globe 
which extends a hundred miles on every side of us; much 
less the globe as a whole. The piece of rock on which we 
stand can be mentally represented with something like com- 
pleteness: we find ourselves able to think of its top, its 
sides, and its under surface at the same time ; or so nearly at 
the same time that they seem all present in consciousness to- 
gether ; and so we can form what we call a conception of the 
rock. But to do the like with the Earth we find impossible. 
If even to imagine the antipodes as at that distant place in 
space which it actually occupies, is beyond our power; 
much more beyond our power must it be at the same time to 
imagine all other remote points on the Earth's surface as 
in their actual places. Yet we habitually speak as though 
we had an idea of the Earth — as though we could think of it 
in the same way that we think of minor objects. 

"What conception, then, do we form of it? the reader 

26 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 27 

may ask. That its name calls up in us some state of con- 
sciousness is unquestionable; and if this state of conscious- 
ness is not a conception, properly so called, what is it ? The 
answer seems to be this : — We have learnt by indirect meth- 
ods that the Earth is a sphere; we have formed models ap- 
proximately representing its shape and the distribution of 
its parts; generally when the Earth is referred to, we either 
think of an indefinitely extended mass beneath our feet, or 
else, leaving out the actual Earth, we think of a body like a 
terrestrial globe ; but when we seek to imagine the Earth as 
it really is, we join these two ideas as well as we can — such 
perception as our eyes give us of the Earth's surface we 
couple with the conception of a sphere. And thus we form 
of the Earth, not a conception properly so called, but only a 
symbolic conception.* 

A large proportion of our conceptions, including all 
those of much generality, are of this order. Great magni- 
tudes, great durations, great numbers, are none of them ac- 
tually conceived, but are all of them conceived more or less 
symbolically; and so, too, are all those classes of objects of 
which we predicate some common fact. "When mention is 
made of any individual man, a tolerably complete idea of 
him is formed. If the family he belongs to be spoken of, 
probably but a part of it will be represented in thought: 
under the necessity of attending to that which is said about 
the family, we realize in imagination only its most important 
or familiar members, and pass over the rest with a nascent 
consciousness which we. know could, if requisite, be made 
complete. Should something be remarked of the class, say 
farmers, to which this family belongs, we neither enumerate 
in thought all the individuals contained in the class, nor be- 
lieve that we could do so if required; hut we arc content 
with taking some few samples of it, and remembering that 
these could he indefinitely multiplied. Supposing the sub- 

* Those who may hav<- before met with thi.s twin, will pi .-revive that it is 
here used in quite a different sense. 



28 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

ject of which something is predicated be Englishmen, the 
answering state of consciousness is a still more inadequate 
representative of the reality. Yet more remote is the like- 
ness of the thought to the thing, if reference he made to 
Europeans or to human beings. And when we come to 
propositions concerning the mammalia, or concerning the 
whole of the vertebrata, or concerning animals in general, 
or concerning all organic beings, the unlikeness of our con- 
ceptions to the objects named reaches its extreme. Through- 
out which series of instances we see, that as the number of 
objects grouped together in thought increases, the concept, 
formed of a few typical samples joined with the notion of 
multiplicity, becomes more and more a mere symbol; not 
only because it gradually ceases to represent the size of the 
group, but also because as the group grows more hetero- 
geneous, the typical samples thought of are less like the 
average objects which the group contains. 

This formation of symbolic conceptions, which inevita- 
bly arises as we pass from small and concrete objects to large 
and to discrete ones, is mostly a very useful, and indeed ne- 
cessary, process. When, instead of things whose attributes 
can be tolerably well united in a single state of conscious- 
ness, we have to deal with things whose attributes are too 
vast or numerous to be so united, we must either drop in 
thought part of their attributes, or else not think of them at 
all — either form a more or less symbolic conception, or no 
conception. We must predicate nothing of objects too great 
or too multitudinous to be mentally represented ; or we must 
make our predications by the help of extremely inadequate 
representations of such objects — mere symbols of them. 

But while by this process alone we are enabled to form 
general propositions, and so to reach general conclusions, we 
are by this process perpetually led into danger, and very 
often into error. We habitually mistake our symbolic con- 
ceptions for real ones; and so are betrayed into countless 
false inferences. Not only is it that in proportion as the 



ULTIMATE RELTGIOUS IDEAS. 29 

concept we form of any thing or class of things, misrepre- 
sents the reality, we are apt to be wrong in any assertion we 
make respecting the reality; but it is that we are led to sup- 
pose we have truly conceived a great variety of things which 
we have conceived only in this fictitious way ; and further to 
confound with these certain things which cannot be con- 
ceived in any way. How almost unavoidably we fall into 
this error it will be needful here to observe. 

From objects readily representable in their totality, to 
those of which we cannot form even an approximate repre- 
sentation, there is an insensible transition. Between a peb- 
ble and the entire Earth a series of magnitudes might be in- 
troduced, each of which differed from the adjacent ones so 
slightly that it would be impossible to say at what point in 
the series our conceptions of them became inadequate. 
Similarly, there is a gradual progression from those groups 
of a few individuals which we can think of as groups with 
tolerable completeness, to those larger and larger groups 
of which we can form nothing like true ideas. Whence it is 
manifest that we pass from actual conceptions to symbolic 
ones by infinitesimal steps. Kote next that we are led to 
deal with our symbolic conceptions as though they were ac- 
tual ones, not only because we cannot clearly separate the 
two, but also because, in the great majority of cases, the first 
servo our purposes nearly or quite as well as the last — are 
simply the abbreviated signs we substitute for those 
more elaborate signs which arc our equivalents for 
real objects. Those very imperfect representations of ordi- 
nary things wliicli we habitually make in thinking, we know 
can be developed into adequate ones if needful. Those con- 
cepts of larger magnitudes and more extensive classes 
which we cannot make adequate, we still find can be veri- 
fied by some indirect process of measuremenl or enumera- 
tion. And even in the case of such an utterly inconceivable 
object as the Solar System, we yet, through the fulfil- 
ment <»f predictions founded on <>\\v symbolic conception of 



30 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

it, gain the conviction that this symbolic conception stands 
for an actual existence, and, in a sense, truly expresses cer- 
tain of its constituent relations. Thus our symbolic concep- 
tions being in the majority of cases capable of development 
into complete ones, and in most other cases serving as steps 
to conclusions which are proved valid by their correspond- 
ence with observation, we acquire a confirmed habit of deal- 
ing with them as true conceptions — as real representations 
of actualities. Learning by long experience that they can, 
if needful, be verified, we are led habitually to accept them 
without verification. And thus we open the door to some 
which profess to stand for known things, but which really 
stand for things that cannot be known in any way. 

To sum up, we must say of conceptions in general, that 
they are complete only when the attributes of the object 
conceived are of such number and kind that they can be 
represented in consciousness so nearly at the same time as to 
seem all present together; that as the objects conceived be- 
come larger and more complex, some of the attributes first 
thought of fade from consciousness before the rest have 
been represented, and the conception thus becomes imper- 
fect ; that when the size, complexity, or discreteness of the 
object conceived becomes very great, only a small portion 
of its attributes can be thought of at once, and the concep- 
tion formed of it thus becomes so inadequate as to be a mere 
symbol ; that nevertheless such symbolic conceptions, which 
are indispensable in general thinking, are legitimate, pro- 
vided that by some cumulative or indirect process of 
thought, or by the fulfilment of predictions based on them, 
we can assure ourselves that they stand for actualities; but 
that when our symbolic conceptions are such that no cumu- 
lative or indirect processes of thought can enable us to ascer- 
tain that there are corresponding actualities, nor any predic- 
tions be made whose fulfilment can prove this, then they are 
altogether vicious and illusive, and in no way distinguish- 
able from pure fictions. 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 31 

§ 10. And now to consider the bearings of this general 
truth on our immediate topic — Ultimate Religious Ideas. 

To the primitive man sometimes happen things which 
are out of the ordinary course — diseases, storms, earth- 
quakes, echos, eclipses. From dreams arises the idea of a 
wandering double ; whence follows the belief that the dou- 
ble, departing permanently at death, is then a ghost. 
Ghosts thus become assignable causes for strange occur- 
rences. The greater ghosts are presently supposed to have 
extended spheres of action. As men grow intelligent the 
conceptions of these minor invisible agencies merge into the 
conception of a universal invisible agency ; and there result 
hypotheses concerning the origin, not of special incidents 
only, but of things in general. 

A critical examination, however, will prove not only 
tli at no current hypothesis is tenable, but also that no tena- 
ble hypothesis can be framed. 

§ 11. Respecting the origin of the Universe three ver- 
bally intelligible suppositions may be made. We may as- 
sert that it is self -existent ; or that it is self -created ; or that 
it is created by an external agency. AVhich of these suppo- 
sitions is most credible it is not needful here to inquire. The 
deeper question, into which this finally merges, is, whether 
any one of them is even conceivable iu the true sense of the 
word. Let us successively test them. 

When we speak of a man as self-supporting, of an ap- 
paratus as self-acting, or of a tree ;i- self-developed, our ex- 
pressions, however inexact, stand for things that can be 
realized in thought with tolerable completeness. Our con- 
ception of the Belf-development of a tree i> doubtless sym- 
bolic. But though we cannot really represent in conscious- 
the entire .-eric- of complex changes through which 
the tree passes, yet we can thus represent the leading fea- 
tures of the series; and general experience teaches us that 
by long continued observation we could gain the power to 



32 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

realize in thought a series of changes more fully represent- 
ing the actual series: that is, we know that our symbolic 
conception of self -development can be expanded into some- 
thing like a real conception; and that it expresses, however 
inaccurately, an actual process in nature. But when we 
speak of self -existence, and, helped by the above analogies, 
form some vague symbolic conception of it, we delude our- 
selves in supposing that this symbolic conception is of the 
same order as the others. On joining the word self to the 
word existence, the force of association makes us believe we 
have a thought like that suggested by the compound word 
self-acting. An endeavour to expand this symbolic concep- 
tion, however, will undeceive us. In the first place, it 
is clear that by self -existence we especially mean, an exist- 
ence independent of any other — not produced by any other : 
the assertion of self -existence is simply an indirect denial of 
creation. In thus excluding the idea of any antecedent 
cause, we necessarily exclude the idea of a beginning; for 
to admit the idea of a beginning — to admit that there was a 
time when the existence had not commenced — is to admit 
that its commencement was determined by something, or 
was caused ; which is a contradiction. Self -existence, there- 
fore, necessarily means existence without a beginning; and 
to form a conception of self -existence is to form a concep- 
tion of existence without a beginning. Now by no mental 
effort can we do this. To conceive existence through infinite 
past-time, implies the conception of infinite past-time, which 
is an impossibility. To this let us add, that even 
were self -existence conceivable, it would not in any sense be 
an explanation of the Universe. ~No one will say that the 
existence of an object at the present moment is made easier 
to understand by the discovery that it existed an hour ago, or 
a day ago, or a year ago ; and if its existence now is not made 
in the least degree more comprehensible by its existence 
during some previous finite period of time, then no accumu- 
lation of such finite periods, even could we extend them to 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 33 

an infinite period, would make it more comprehensible. 
Thus the Atheistic theory is not only absolutely unthink- 
able, but, even if it were thinkable, would not be a solution. 
The assertion that the Universe is self-existent does not 
really carry us a step beyond the cognition of its present ex- 
istence; and so leaves us with a mere re-statement of the 
mystery. 

The hypothesis of self-creation, which practically 
amounts to what is called Pantheism, is similarly incapable 
of being represented in thought. Certain phenomena, such 
as the precipitation of invisible vapour into cloud, aid us in 
fonning a symbolic conception of a self -evolved Universe; 
and there are not wanting indications in the heavens, and on 
the earth, which help us to render this conception tolerably 
definite. But while the succession of phases through which 
the Universe has passed in reaching its present form, may 
perhaps be comprehended as in a sense self-determined ; yet 
the impossibility of expanding our symbolic conception of 
self-creation into a real conception, remains as complete as 
ever. Really to conceive self -creation, is to conceive poten- 
tial existence passing into actual existence by some inherent 
necessity; which we cannot do. We cannot form 

any idea of a potential existence of the universe, as dis- 
tinguished from its actual existence. If represented in 
thought at all, potential existence must be represented as 
something, that is as an actual existence; to suppose that it 
can be represented as nothing, involves two absurdities — 
that nothing is more than a negation, and can be positively 
represented in thought; and that one nothing is distin- 
guished from all other nothings by its power to develope into 
something. Nor La tins all. We have no state of conscious- 
answering to the words — an inherent necessity by 
which potential existence became actual existence. To ren- 
der them into thought, existence, having for an indefinite 
period remained in one form, must be conceived as passing 
without any external or additional impulse, into another 






34 ULTIMATE BJELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

form; and this involves the idea of a change without 
a cause — a thing of which no idea is possible. Thus 
the terms of this hypothesis do not stand for real 
thoughts; but merely suggest the vaguest symbols in- 
capable of any interpretation. Moreover, even were 
it true that potential existence is conceivable as a different 
thing from actual existence; and that the transition from 
the one to the other can be mentally realized as a self-deter- 
mined change; we should still be no forwarder: the prob- 
lem would simply be removed a step back. For whence the 
potential existence? This would just as much require ac- 
counting for as actual existence; and just the same difficul- 
ties would meet us. Respecting the origin of such a latent 
power, no other suppositions could be made than those above 
named — self -existence, self -creation, creation by external 
agency. The self -existence of a potential universe is no 
more conceivable than we have found the self-existence of 
the actual universe to be. The self -creation of such a poten- 
tial universe would involve over again the difficulties here 
stated — would imply behind this potential universe a more 
remote potentiality; and so on in an infinite series, leaving 
us at last no forwarder than at first. While to assign as the 
source of this potential universe an external agency, would 
be to introduce the notion of a potential universe for no pur- 
pose whatever. 

There remains to be examined the commonly-received or 
theistic hypothesis — creation by external agency. Alike in 
the rudest creeds and in the cosmogony long current among 
ourselves, it is assumed that the genesis of the Heavens and 
the Earth is affected somewhat after the manner in which a 
workman shapes a piece of furniture. And this assumption 
is made not by theologians only, but by the immense ma- 
jority of philosophers, past and present. Equally in the 
writings of Plato, and in those of not a few living men 
of science, we find it taken for granted that there is 
an analogy between the process of creation and the process 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 35 

of manufacture. Xow in the first place, not only is 

this conception one that cannot by any cumulative process 
of thought, or the fulfilment of predictions based on it, be 
shown to answer to anything actual ; and not only is it that 
in the absence of all evidence respecting the process of crea- 
tion, we have no proof of correspondence even between this 
limited conception and some limited portion of the fact; 
but it is that the conception is not even consistent with itself 
— cannot be realized in thought, when all its assumptions 
are granted. Though it is true that the proceedings of a 
human artificer may vaguely symbolize to us a method 
after which the Universe might be shaped, yet they do not 
help us to comprehend the real mystery ; namely, the origin 
of the material of which the Universe consists. The artizan 
does not make the iron, wood, or stone, he uses ; but merely 
fashions and combines them. If we suppose suns, and plan- 
ets, and satellites, and all they contain to have been simi- 
larly formed by a " Great Artificer," we suppose merely 
that certain pre-existing elements were thus put into their 
present arrangement. But whence the pre-existing ele- 
ments? The comparison helps us not in the least to under- 
stand that; and unless it helps us to understand that, it is 
worthless. The production of matter out of nothing is the 
real mystery, which neither this simile nor any other enables 
U3 to conceive; and a simile which does not enable us to 
conceive this, may just as well be dispensed with. Still 

more manifest does the insufficiency of this theory of crea- 
1 i. .n become, when we turn from material objects to that 
which contains them — when instead of matter we contem- 
plate space. Did there exisl nothing but an immeasurable 
void, explanation would be needed as much as now. There 
would Btill arise the question — how came it so? If the the- 
ory of creation by external agency were an adequate one, ii 
would supply an answer; and its answer would be-— space 
was made in the -nine manner thai mutter was made. But 
the impossibility of conceiving this is so manifest, thai no 



36 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

one dares to assert it. For if space was created, it must 
have been previously non-existent. The non-existence of 
space cannot, however, by any mental effort be imagined. 
It is one of the most familiar truths that the idea of space as 
surrounding us on all sides, is not for a moment to be got rid 
of — not only are we compelled to think of space as now 
everywhere present, but we are unable to conceive its ab- 
sense either in the past or the future. And if the non-ex- 
istence of space is absolutely inconceivable, then, neces- 
sarily, its creation is absolutely inconceivable. Lastly, 
even supposing that the genesis of the Universe could really 
be represented in thought as the result of an external 
agency, the mystery would be as great as ever; for there 
would still arise the question — how came there to be an ex- 
ternal agency? To account for this only the same three 
hypotheses are possible — self-existence, self-creation, and 
creation by external agency. Of these the last is useless: 
it commits us to an infinite series of such agencies, and even 
then leaves us where we were. By the second we are prac- 
tically involved in the same predicament; since, as already 
shown, self-creation implies an infinite series of potential 
existences. We are obliged therefore to fall back upon the 
first, which is the one commonly accepted and commonly 
supposed to be satisfactory. Those who cannot conceive a 
self -existent universe; and who therefore assume a creator 
as the source of the universe ; take for granted that they can 
conceive a self-existent creator. The mystery which they 
recognize in this great fact surrounding them on every side, 
they transfer to an alleged source of this great fact; and 
then suppose that they have solved the mystery. But they 
delude themselves. As was proved at the outset of the 
argument, self -existence is rigorously inconceivable; and 
this holds true whatever be the nature of the object of which 
it is predicated. Whoever agrees that the atheistic hypo- 
thesis is untenable because it involves the impossible idea 
of self-existence, must perforce admit that the theistic 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 37 

hypothesis is untenable if it contains the same impossible 
idea. 

Thus these three different suppositions respecting the 
origin of things, verbally intelligible though they are, and 
severally seeming to their respective adherents quite ra- 
tional, turn out, when critically examined, to be literally 
unthinkable. It is not a question of probability, or credibil- 
ity, but of conceivability. Experiment proves that the ele- 
ments of these hypotheses cannot even be put together^m 
consciousness; and we can entertain them only as we enter- 
tain such pseud-ideas as a square fluid and a moral sub- 
stance — only by abstaining from the endeavour to render 
them into actual thoughts. Or, reverting to our original 
mode of statement, we may say that they severally involve 
symbolic conceptions of the illegitimate and illusive kind. 
Differing so widely as they seem to do, the atheistic, the 
pantheistic, and the theistic hypotheses contain the same 
ultimate element. It is impossible to avoid making the 
assumption of self -existence somewhere; and whether that 
assumption be made nakedly, or under complicated dis- 
guises, it is equally vicious, equally unthinkable. Be it a 
fragment of matter, or some fancied potential form of mat- 
ter, or some more remote and still less imaginable cause, our 
conception of its self -existence can be formed only by join- 
ing with it the notion of unlimited duration through past 
time. And as unlimited duration is inconceivable, all those 
formal ideas into which it enters are inconceivable ; and in- 
deed, if such an expression is allowable, are the more incon- 
ceivable in proportion as the other elements of the ideas are 
indefinite. So that in fact, impossible as it is to think of the 
actual universe as self-existing, we do but multiply impossi- 
bilities of thought by every attempt we make to explain its 
existence. 

§ 12. If from the origin of the Universe we turn to its 
nature, the like insurmountable difficulties rise up before us 



38 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

on all sides — or rather, the same difficulties under new as- 
pects. We find ourselves on the one hand obliged to make 
certain assumptions; and yet on the other hand we find 
these assumptions cannot be represented in thought. 

When we inquire what is the meaning of the various 
effects produced upon our senses — when we ask how there 
come to be in our consciousness impressions of sounds, of col- 
ours, of tastes, and of those various attributes which we as- 
cribe to bodies ; we are compelled to regard them as the ef- 
fects of some cause. We may stop short in the belief 
that this cause is what we call matter. Or we may 
conclude, as some do, that matter is only a cer- 
tain mode of manifestation of spirit; which is there- 
fore the true cause. Or, regarding matter and spirit 
as proximate agencies, we may attribute all the changes 
wrought in our consciousness to immediate divine power. 
But be the cause we assign what it may, we are obliged to 
suppose some cause. And we are not only obliged to sup- 
pose some cause, but also a first cause. The matter, or spirit, 
or whatever we assume to be the agent producing on us these 
various impressions, must either be the first cause of them or 
not. If it is the first cause, the conclusion is reached. If it 
is not the first cause, then by implication there must be a 
cause behind it; which thus becomes the real cause of the 
effect. Manifestly, however complicated the assumptions, 
the same conclusion must inevitably be reached. We can- 
not think at all about the impressions which the external 
world produces on us, without thinking of them as caused; 
and we cannot carry out an inquiry concerning their causa- 
tion, without inevitably committing ourselves to the hypo- 
thesis of a First Cause. 

But now if we go a step further, and ask what is the na- 
ture of this First Cause, we are driven by an inexorable 
logic to certain further conclusions. Is the First Cause finite 
or infinite? If we say finite we involve ourselves in a di- 
lemma. To think of the First Cause as finite, is to think of 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 89 

it as limited. To think of it as limited, necessarily implies 
a conception of something beyond its limits : it is absolutely 
impossible to conceive a thing as bounded without conceiv- 
ing a region surrounding its boundaries. What now must 
we say of this region? If the First Cause is limited, and 
there consequently lies something outside of it, this some- 
thing must have no First Cause — must be uncaused. But 
if we admit that there can be something uncaused, there is 
no reason to assume a cause for anything. If beyond that 
finite region over which the First Cause extends, there lies 
a region, which we are compelled to regard as infinite, over 
which it does not extend — if we admit that there is an infi- 
nite uncaused surrounding the finite caused; we tacitly 
abandon the hypothesis of causation altogether. Thus it 
is impossible to consider the First Cause as finite. And if it 
cannot be finite it must be infinite. 

Another inference concerning the First Cause is equally 
unavoidable. It must be independent. If it is dependent it 
cannot be the First Cause; for that must be the First 
Cause on which it depends. It is not enough to say that it is 
partially independent; since this implies some necessity 
which determines its partial dependence, and this necessity, 
be it what it may, must be a higher cause, or the true First 
Cause, which is a contradiction. But to think of the First 
Cause as totally independent, is to think of it as that which 
exists in the absence of all other existence; seeing that if 
the presence of any other existence is necessary, it must be 
partially dependent on that other existence, and so cannot 
be the First Cause. Xot only however must the First Cause 
be a form of being which has no necessary relation to any 
other form of being, but it can have no necessary rela- 
tion within itself. There can be nothing in it which deter- 
mines change, and yet nothing which prevents change. For 
if it contains something which imposes such necessities or re- 
straints, this something must be a cause higher than the 
First Cause, which is absurd. Thus the Firsl Cause must be 



40 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

in every sense perfect, complete, total : including within it- 
self all power, and transcending all law. Or to use the es- 
tablished word, it must be absolute. 

Here then respecting the nature of the Universe, we 
seem committed to certain unavoidable conclusions. The 
objects and actions surrounding us, not less than the phe- 
nomena of our own consciousness, compel us to ask a cause ; 
in our search for a cause, we discover no resting place until 
we arrive at the hypothesis of a First Cause ; and we have no 
alternative but to regard this First Cause as Infinite and Ab- 
solute. These are inferences forced upon us by arguments 
from which there appears no escape. It is hardly needful 
however to show those who have followed thus far, how 
illusive are these reasonings and their results. But that it 
would tax the reader's patience to no purpose, it might easily 
be proved that the materials of which the argument is built, 
equally with the conclusions based on them, are merely 
symbolic conceptions of the illegitimate order. Instead, 
however, of repeating the disproof used above, it will be 
desirable to pursue another method; showing fallacy 
of these conclusions by disclosing their mutual contradic- 
tions. 

Here I cannot do better than avail myself of the demon- 
stration which Mr Mansel, carrying out in detail the doc- 
trine of Sir William Hamilton, has given in his " Limits of 
Religious Thought." And I gladly do this, not only be- 
cause his mode of presentation cannot be improved, but also 
because, writing as he does in defence of the current Theolo- 
gy, his reasonings will be the more acceptable to the major- 
ity of readers. 

§ 13. Having given preliminary definitions of the First 
Cause, of the Infinite, and of the Absolute, Mr Mansel 
says : — 

" But these three conceptions, the Cause, the Absolute, 
the Infinite, all equally indispensable, do they not imply 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 41 

contradiction to each other, when viewed in conjunction, as 
attributes of one and the same Being ? A Cause cannot, as 
such, be absolute : the Absolute cannot, as such, be a cause. 
The cause, as such, exists only in relation to its effect: the 
cause is a cause of the effect; the effect is an effect of the 
cause. On the other hand, the conception of the Absolute 
implies a possible existence out of all relation. We attempt 
to escape from this apparent contradiction, by introducing 
the idea of succession in time. The Absolute exists first by 
itself, and afterwards becomes a Cause. But here we are 
checked by the third conception, that of the Infinite. How 
can the Infinite become that which it was not from the first ? 
If Causation is a possible mode of existence, that which, ex- 
ists without causing is not infinite; that which becomes a 
cause has passed beyond its former limits." * * * 

" Supposing the Absolute to become a cause, it will fol- 
low that it operates by means of freewill and consciousness. 
For a necessary cause cannot be conceived as absolute and 
infinite. If necessitated by something beyond itself, it is 
thereby limited by a superior power ; and if necessitated by 
itself, it has in its own nature a necessary relation to its 
effect. The act of causation must therefore be voluntary; 
and volition is only possible in a conscious being. But con- 
sciousness again is only conceivable as a relation. There 
must be a conscious subject, and an object of which he is 
conscious. The subject is a subject to the object; the ob- 
ject is an object to the subject; and neither can exist by it- 
self as the absolute. This difficulty, again, may be for the 
moment evaded, by distinguishing between the absolute as 
related to another and the absolute as related to itself. The 
Absolute, it may be said, may possibly be conscious, pro- 
vided it is only conscious of itself. But this alternative is, 
in ultimate analysis, no less self-destructive than the other. 
For the object of consciousness, whether a mode of the sub- 
ject's existence or not, is either created in and by the act of 
consciousness, or has an existence independent of it. In the 



42 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

former case, the object depends upon the subject, and the 
subject alone is the true absolute. In the latter case, the 
subject depends upon the object, and the object alone is the 
true absolute. Or if we attempt a third hypothesis, and 
maintain that each exists independently of the other, we 
have no absolute at all, but only a pair of relatives; for co- 
existence, whether in consciousness or not, is itself a re- 
lation." 

" The corollary from this reasoning is obvious. ]^ot 
only is the Absolute, as conceived, incapable of a necessary 
relation to anything else; but it is also incapable of con- 
taining, by the constitution of its own nature, an essential 
relation within itself; as a whole, for instance, composed of 
parts, or as a substance consisting of attributes, or as a con- 
scious subject in antithesis to an object. For if there is in 
the absolute any principle of unity, distinct from the mere 
accumulation of parts or attributes, this principle alone is 
the true absolute. If, on the other hand, there is no such 
principle, then there is no absolute at all, but only a plural- 
ity of relatives. The almost unanimous voice of philosophy, 
in pronouncing that the absolute is both one and simple, 
must be accepted as the voice of reason also, so far as reason 
has any voice in the matter. But this absolute unity, as in- 
different and containing no attributes, can neither be distin- 
guished from the multiplicity of finite beings by any char- 
acteristic feature, nor be identified with them in their multi- 
plicity. Thus we are landed in an inextricable dilemma. 
The Absolute cannot be conceived as conscious, neither can 
it be conceived as unconscious: it cannot be conceived as 
complex, neither can it be conceived as simple : it cannot be 
conceived by difference, neither can it be conceived by the 
absence of difference: it cannot be identified with the uni- 
verse, neither can it be distinguished from it. The One and 
the Many, regarded as the beginning of existence, are thus 
alike incomprehensible." 

" The fundamental conceptions of Rational Theology 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 43 

being thus self -destructive, we may naturally expect to find 
the same antagonism manifested in their special applica- 
tions. * * * How, for example, can Infinite Power be able 
to do all things, and yet Infinite Goodness be unable to do 
evil? How can Infinite Justice exact the utmost penalty 
for every sin, and yet Infinite Mercy pardon the sinner? 
How can Infinite Wisdom know all that is to come, and yet 
Infinite Freedom be at liberty to do or to forbear? How is 
the existence of Evil compatible with that of an infinitely 
perfect Being; for if he wills it, he is not infinitely good; 
and if he wills it not, his will is thwarted and his sphere of 
action limited?" * * * 

" Let us, however, suppose for an instant that these 
difficulties are surmounted, and the existence of the Abso- 
lute securely established on the testimony of reason. Still 
we have not succeeded in reconciling this idea with that of a 
Cause: we have clone nothing towards explaining how the 
absolute can give rise to the relative, the infinite to the 
finite. If the condition of causal activity is a higher state 
than that of quiescence, the Absolute, whether acting vol- 
untarily or involuntarily, has passed from a condition of 
comparative imperfection to one of comparative per- 
fection; and therefore was not originally perfect. If 
the state of activity is an inferior state to that of 
quiescence, the Absolute, in becoming a cause, has lost its 
original perfection. There remains only the supposition 
that the two states are equal, and the act of creation one of 
complete indifference. But this supposition annihilates the 
unity of the absolute, or it annihilates itself. If the act of 
creation is real, and ye1 indifferent, we must admit the pos- 
sibility of two conceptions of the absolute, the one as pro- 
ductive, the other as non-productive. I i' the ad is not. real, 
the supposition itself vanishes." ' :: ' ' :: ' '■'-' 

" Again, how' can the relative be conceived as coming 
into being? If it is a distind reality from the absolute, it 
must be conceived as passing from non-existence into exist- 



44 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

ence. But to conceive an object as non-existent, is again a 
self-contradiction; for that which is conceived exists, as an 
object of thought, in and by that conception. We may ab- 
stain from thinking of an object at all; but, if we think of 
it, we cannot but think of it as existing. It is possible at one 
time not to think of an object at all, and at another to think 
of it as already in being ; but to think of it in the act of be- 
coming, in the progress from not being into being, is to 
think that which, in the very thought, annihilates it- 
self." * * * 

" To sum up briefly this portion of my argument. The 
conception of the Absolute and Infinite, from whatever side 
we view it, appears encompassed with contradictions. There 
is a contradiction in supposing such an object to exist, 
whether alone or in conjunction with others; and there is 
a contradiction in supposing it not to exist. There is 
a contradiction in conceiving it as one; and there is a con- 
tradiction in conceiving it as many. There is a contradic- 
tion in conceiving it as personal; and there is a contradic- 
tion in conceiving it as impersonal. It cannot, without 
contradiction, be represented as active; nor, without equal 
contradiction, be represented as inactive. It cannot be con- 
ceived as the sum of all existence; nor yet can it be con- 
ceived as a part only of that sum." 

§ 14. And now what is the bearing of these results on 
the question before us? Our examination of Ultimate Re- 
hgious Ideas has been carried on with the view of making 
manifest some fundamental verity contained in them. 
Thus far however we have arrived at negative conclusions 
only. Criticising the essential conceptions involved in the 
different orders of beliefs, we find no one of them to be 
logically defensible. Passing over the consideration of 
credibility, and confining ourselves to that of conceivabil- 
ity, we see that Atheism, Pantheism, and Theism, when rig- 
orously analyzed, severally prove to be absolutely unthink- 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 45 

able. Instead of disclosing a fundamental verity existing 
in each, our investigation seems rather to have shown that 
there is no fundamental verity contained in any. To carry 
away this conclusion, however, would be a fatal error; as 
we shall shortly see. 

Leaving out the accompanying moral code, which is in 
all cases a supplementary growth, a religious creed is defin- 
able as a theory of original causation. By the lowest sav- 
ages the genesis of things is not inquired about : anomalous 
appearances alone raise the question of agency. But be it 
in the primitive Ghost-theory which assumes a human 
personality behind each unusual phenomenon ; be it in Poly- 
theism, in which these personalities are partially general- 
ized; be it in Monotheism, in which they are wholly gener- 
alized ; or be it in Pantheism, in which the generalized per- 
sonality becomes one with the phenomena; we equally find 
an hypothesis which is supposed to render the Universe 
comprehensible, ^vay, even that which is commonly re- 
garded as the negation of all Religion — even positive Athe- 
ism, comes within the definition ; for it, too, in asserting the 
self-existence of Space, Matter, and Motion, which it re- 
gards as adequate causes of every appearance, propounds an 
ajyriori theory from which it holds the facts to be deducible. 
Now every theory tacitly asserts two things: firstly, that 
there is something to be explained; secondly, that such 
and such is the explanation. Hence, however widely dif- 
ferent speculators may disagree in the solutions they give of 
the same problem; yet by implication they agree that there 
is a problem to be solved. Here then is an element which 
all creeds have in common. Religions diametrically op- 
posed in their overt dogmas, are yet perfectly at one in the 
tacit conviction that the existence of the world with all it 
contains and all which surrounds it, is a mystery ever press- 
ing for interpretation. On this point, if on no other, there 
is entire unanimity. 

Thus we come within sighl of thai which we seek. In 



46 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

the last chapter, reasons were given for inferring that 
human beliefs in general, and especially the perennial ones, 
contain, under whatever disguises of error, some soul of 
truth ; and here we have arrived at a truth underlying even 
the grossest superstitions. We saw further that this soul of 
truth was most likely to be some constituent common to con- 
flicting opinions of the same order ; and here we have a con- 
stituent which may be claimed alike by all religions. It was 
pointed out that this soul of truth would almost certainly be 
more abstract than any of the beliefs involving it; and the 
truth we have arrived at is one exceeding in abstractness the 
most abstract religious doctrines. In every respect, there- 
fore, our conclusion answers to the requirements. It has all 
the characteristics which we inferred must belong to that 
fundamental verity expressed by religions in general. 

That this is the vital element in all religions is further 
proved by the fact, that it is the element which not only sur- 
vives every change, but grows more distinct the more high- 
ly the religion is developed. Aboriginal creeds, though per- 
vaded by the idea of personal agencies which are usually 
unseen, yet conceive these agencies under perfectly concrete 
and ordinary forms — class them with the visible agencies of 
men and animals; and so hide a vague perception of mys- 
tery in disguises as unmysterious as possible. The Poly- 
theistic conceptions in their advanced phases, represent the 
presiding personalities in greatly idealized shapes, existing 
in a remote region, working in subtle ways, and communi- 
cating with men by omens or through inspired persons ; that 
is, the ultimate causes of things are regarded as less familiar 
and comprehensible. The growth of a Monotheistic faith, 
accompanied as it is by a denial of those beliefs in which the 
divine nature is assimilated to the human in all its lower 
propensities, shows us a further step in the same direction; 
and however imperfectly this higher faith is at first real- 
ized, we yet see in altars " to the unknown and unknow- 
able God," and in the worship of a God that cannot by any 



ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 47 

searching be found out, that there is a clearer recognition 
of the inscrutableness of creation. Further developments 
of theology, ending in such assertions as that " a God un- 
derstood would be no God at all," and " to think that God 
is, as we can think him to be, is blasphemy," exhibit this 
recognition still more distinctly ; and it pervades all the cul- 
tivated theology of the present day. Thus while other con- 
stituents of religious creeds one by one drop away, this re- 
mains and grows even more manifest ; and so is shown to be 
the essential constituent. 

Xor does the evidence end here. Xot only is the omni- 
presence of something which passes comprehension, that 
most abstract belief which is common to all religions, which 
becomes the more distinct in proportion as they develope, 
and which remains after their discordant elements have 
been mutually cancelled; but it is that belief which the 
most unsparing criticism of each leaves unquestionable — or 
rather makes ever clearer. It has nothing to fear from the 
most inexorable logic ; but on the contrary is a belief which 
the most inexorable logic shows to be more profoundly true 
than any religion supposes. For every religion, setting out 
though it does with the tacit assertion of a mystery, forth- 
with proceeds to give some solution of this mystery; and so 
asserts that it is not a mystery passing human comprehen- 
sion. But an examination of the solutions they severally 
propound, shows them to be uniformly invalid. The analy- 
sifl of every possible hypothesis proves, not simply that no 
hypothesis is sufficient, but that no hypothesis is even think- 
able. And thus the mystery which all religions recognize, 
turns out to be a far more transcendent mystery than any of 
them suspect — not a relative, but an absolute mystery. 

Here, then, is an ultimate religious truth of the highest 
possible certainty — a truth in which religions in general are 
at one with each other, and with a philosophy antagonistic 
to their special dogmas. And this truth, respecting which 
there is a latent agreement among all mankind from the 



48 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 

fetish-worshipper to the most stoical critic of human creeds, 
must be the one we seek. If Religion and Science are to be 
reconciled, the basis of reconciliation must be this deepest, 
widest, and most certain of all facts — that the Power which 
the Universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable. 



CHAPTER III. 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 



§ 15. \Vhat are Space and Time? Two hypotheses are 
current respecting them: the one that they are objective, 
and the other that they are subjective — the one that they 
are external to, and independent of, ourselves, the other 
that they are internal, and appertain to our own conscious- 
ness. Let us see what becomes of these hypotheses under 
analysis. 

To say that Space and Time exist objectively, is to say 
that they are entities. The assertion that they are non- 
entities is self-destructive: non-entities are non-existences; 
and to allege that non-existences exist objectively, is a con- 
tradiction in terms. Moreover, to deny that Space and Time 
are things, and so by implication to call them nothings, in- 
volves the absurdity that there are two kinds of nothing. 
Neither can they be regarded as attributes of some entity; 
seeing, not only that it is impossible really to conceive any 
entity of which they arc attributes, but seeing further that 
we cannot think of them as disappearing, eves if every- 
thing else disappeared; whereas attributes necessarily dis- 
appear along with the entities they belong to. Thus as 
Space and Time cannot be either non-entities, aor the attri- 
bute- of entities, we have no choice but consider them as 
entities. Bui while, on the hypothesis of their ob- 

jectivity, Space and Time must be classed as things, we 
find, on experiment, that to represent them in thoughl as 

49 



50 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

things is impossible. To be conceived at all, a thing must 
be conceived as having attributes. We can distinguish 
something from nothing, only by the power which the 
something has to act on our consciousness; the several 
affections it produces on our consciousness (or else the 
hypothetical causes of them), we attribute to it, and call 
its attributes; and the absence of these attributes is the 
absence of the terms in which the something is conceived, 
and involves the absence of a conception. What now are 
the attributes of Space? The only one which it is possible 
for a moment to think of as belonging to it, is that of exten- 
sion; and to credit it with this implies a confusion of 
thought. For extension and Space are controvertible terms : 
by extension, as we ascribe it to surrounding objects, we 
mean occupancy of Space ; and thus to say that Space is ex- 
tended, is to say that Space occupies Space. How we are 
similarly unable to assign any attribute to Time, scarcely 
needs pointing out. ~Nor are Time and Space un- 

thinkable as entities only from the absence of attributes; 
there is another peculiarity, familiar to readers of meta- 
physics, which equally excludes them from the category. 
All entities which we actually know as such, are limited; 
and even if we suppose ourselves either to know or to be 
able to conceive some unlimited entity, we of necessity in so 
classing it positively separate it from the class of limited 
entities. But of Space and Time we cannot assert either 
limitation or the absence of limitation. We find ourselves 
totally unable to form any mental image of unbounded 
Space; and yet totally unable to imagine bounds beyond 
which there is no Space. Similarly at the other extreme: 
it is impossible to think of a limit to the divisibility of 
Space; yet equally impossible to think of its infinite divisi- 
bility. And, without stating them, it will be seen that we 
labour under like impotencies in respect to Time. Thus 

we cannot conceive Space and Time as entities, and are 
equally disabled from conceiving them as either the attri- 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 51 

butes of entities or as non-entities. TTe are compelled to 
think of them as existing; and vet cannot bring them 
within those conditions under which existences are repre- 
sented in thought. 

Shall we then take refuge in the Kantian doctrine? 
shall we say that Space and Time are forms of the intellect, 
— " a priori laws or conditions of the conscious mind " ? 
To do this is to escape from great difficulties by rushing 
into greater. The proposition with which Kant's philoso- 
phy sets out, verbally intelligible though it is, cannot by 
any effort be rendered into thought — cannot be interpreted 
into an idea properly so called, but stands merely for a 
pseud-idea. In the first place, to assert that Space 

and Time, as we are conscious of them, are subjective condi- 
tions, is by implication to assert that they are not objective 
realities: if the Space and Time present to our minds be- 
long to the ego, then of necessity they do not belong to the 
non-ego. Xow it is absolutely impossible to think this. 
The very fact on which Kant bases his hypothesis — namely 
that our consciousness of Space and Time cannot be sup- 
pressed — testifies as much; for that consciousness of Space 
i[\\d Time which Ave cannot rid ourselves of, is the conscious- 
ness of them as existing objectively. It is useless to reply 
that such an inability must inevitably result if they are sub- 
jective forms. The question here is — What does conscious- 
directly testify? And the direct testimony of con- 
sciousness is, that Time and Space are not within but with- 
out the mind ; and so absolutely independent of it thai they 
cannot be conceived to become non-existen1 even were the 
mind to become non-existent. Besides being posi- 

tively unthinkable in what it tacitly denies, the theory of 
Kant is equally unthinkable in what it openly affirms. It 
is not -imply that we cannot combine the thoughl of Space 
with the thoughl <d' our own personality, and contemplate 
the one as a property of the other though our inability 
to do this would prove the ineonceivableness of tin 



livno- 



52 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

thesis — but it is that the hypothesis carries in itself the proof 
of its own inconceivableness. For if Space and Time are 
forms of thought, they can never be thought of; since it is 
impossible for anything to be at once the form of thought 
and the matter of thought. That Space and Time are ob- 
jects of consciousness, Kant emphatically asserts by saying 
that it is impossible to suppress the consciousness of them. 
How then, if they are objects of consciousness, can they at 
the same time be conditions of consciousness ? If Space and 
Time are the conditions under which we think, then when 
we think of Space and Time themselves, our thoughts must 
be unconditioned; and if there can thus be unconditioned 
thoughts, what becomes of the theory ? 

It results therefore that Space and Time are wholly in- 
comprehensible. The immediate knowledge which we 
seem to have of them, proves, when examined, to be total 
ignorance. While our belief in their objective reality is in- 
surmountable, we are unable to give any rational account 
of it. And to posit the alternative belief (possible to state 
but impossible to realize) is merely to multiply irration- 
alities. 

§ 16. Were it not for the necessities of the argument, it 
would be inexcusable to occupy the reader's attention with 
the threadbare, and yet unencled, controversy respecting the 
divisibility of matter. Matter is either infinitely divisible 
or it is not: no third possibility can be named. Which of 
the alternatives shall we accept? If we say that Matter is 
infinitely divisible, we commit ourselves to a supposition not 
realizable in thought. We can bisect and re-bisect a body, 
and continually repeating the act until we reduce its parts to 
a size no longer physically divisible, may then mentally con- 
tinue the process without limit. To do this, however, is 
not really to conceive the infinite divisibility of matter, but 
to form a symbolic conception incapable of expansion into 
a real one, and not admitting of other verification. Keally 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 53 

to conceive the infinite divisibility of matter, is mentally 
to follow out the divisions to infinity; and to do this would 
require infinite time. On the other hand, to assert that mat- 
ter is not infinitely divisible, is to assert that it is reducible 
to parts which no conceivable power can divide; and this 
verbal supposition can no more be represented in thought 
than the other. For each of such ultimate parts, did they 
exist, must have an under and an upper surface, a right and 
a left side, like any larger fragment. Xow it is impossible 
to imagine its sides so near that no plane of section can be 
conceived between them; and however great be the as- 
sumed force of cohesion, it is impossible to shut out the 
idea of a greater force capable of overcoming it. So that 
to human intelligence the one hypothesis is no more accept- 
able than the other; and yet the conclusion that one or 
other must agree with the fact, seems to human intelligence 
unavoidable. 

Again, leaving this insoluble question, let us ask 
whether substance has, in reality, anything like that extend- 
ed solidity which it presents to our consciousness. The por- 
tion of space occupied by a piece of metal, seems to eyes and 
fingers perfectly filled: we perceive a homogeneous, resist- 
ing mass, without any breach of continuity. Shall we then 
say that Matter is as actually solid as it appears? Shall we 
say that whether it consists of an infinitely divisible element 
or of ultimate units incapable of further division, its parts 
are everywhere in actual contact? To assert as much en- 
tangles us in insuperable difficulties. Were Matter thus 
absolutely -olid, it would be, what it is not — absolutely in- 
compressible; since compressibility, implying the nearer ap- 
proach of constituent parts, is not thinkable unless there is 
unoccupied -pace between the parts. Nor is this all. It is 
an established mechanical truth, that if a body, moving at 
a given velocity, Btrikes an equal body at rest in such wise 
that the two move on together, their joint velocity will be 
but half that of the striking body. Now it is a law of 



54 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

which the negation is inconceivable, that in passing from 
any one degree of magnitude to any other, all intermediate 
degrees must be passed through. Or, in the case before us, 
a body moving at velocity 4, cannot, by collision, be re- 
duced to velocity 2, without passing through all velocities 
between 4 and 2. But were Matter truly solid — were its 
units absolutely incompressible and in absolute contact — 
this " law of continuity/' as it is called, would be broken in 
every case of collision. For when, of two such units, one 
moving at velocity 4 strikes another at rest, the striking 
unit must have its velocity 4 instantaneously reduced to ve- 
locity 2 ; must pass from velocity 4 to velocity 2 without any 
lapse of time, and without passing through intermediate 
velocities; must be moving with velocities 4 and 2 at the 
same instant, which is impossible. 

The supposition that Matter is absolutely solid being 
untenable, there presents itself the Newtonian supposition, 
that it consists of solid atoms not in contact but acting on 
each other by attractive and repulsive forces, varying with 
the distances. To assume this, however, merely shifts the 
difficulty: the problem is simply transferred from the ag- 
gregated masses of matter to these hypothetical atoms. For 
granting that Matter, as we perceive it, is made up of such 
dense extended units surrounded by atmospheres of force, 
the question still arises — What is the constitution of these 
units? We have no alternative but to regard each of them 
as a small piece of matter. Looked at through a mental 
microscope, each becomes a mass of substance such as we 
have just been contemplating. Exactly the same inquiries 
may be made respecting the parts of which each atom con- 
sists; while exactly the same difficulties stand in the way of 
every answer. And manifestly, even were the hypothetical 
atom assumed to consist of still minuter ones, the difficulty 
would re-appear at the next step ; nor could it be got rid of 
even by an infinite series of such assumptions. 

Boscovich's conception yet remains to us. Seeing that 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 55 

Matter could not, as Leibnitz suggested, be composed of un- 
extended monads (since the juxta-position of an infinity of 
points having no extension, could not produce that exten- 
sion which matter possesses); and perceiving objections to 
the view entertained by Newton; Boscovich proposed an in- 
termediate theory, uniting, as he considered, the advantages 
of both and avoiding their difficulties. His theory is, that 
the constituents of Matter are centres of force — points with- 
out dimensions, which attract and repel each other in such- 
wise as to be kept at specific distances apart. And he 
argues, mathematically, that the forces possessed by such 
centres might so vary with the distances, that under given 
conditions the centres would remain in stable equilibrium 
with definite interspaces; and yet, under other conditions, 
would maintain larger or smaller interspaces. This specu- 
lation however, ingeniously as it is elaborated, and eluding 
though it does various difficulties, posits a proposition which 
cannot by any effort be represented in thought: it escapes 
all the inconceivabilities above indicated, by merging them 
in the one inconceivability with which it sets out. A centre 
of force absolutely without extension is unthinkable: an- 
swering to these words we can form nothing more than a 
symbolic conception of the illegitimate order. The idea of 
resistance cannot be separated in thought from the idea of 
an extended body which offers resistance. To suppose that 
central forces can reside in points not infinitesimally small 
but occupying no space whatever — points having position 
only, with nothing to mark their position — points in no re- 
spect distinguishable from the surrounding points that are 
not centres of force; — to suppose this, is utterly beyond 
human power. 

Here it may possibly be said, that though nil hypotheses 
respecting tin- constitution of Mattel- commit us to incon- 
ceivable conclusions when logically developed, yet we have 
reason to think that one of tliem corresponds with the f';!--t. 
Though the conception of Matter as consisting of dense in- 



56 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

divisible units, is symbolic and incapable of being complete- 
ly thought out, it may yet be supposed to find indirect veri- 
fication in the truths of chemistry. These, it is argued, 
necessitate the belief that Matter consists of particles of spe- 
cific weights, and therefore of specific sizes. The general 
law of definite proportions seems impossible on any other 
condition than the existence of ultimate atoms ; and though 
the combining weights of the respective elements are termed 
by chemists their " equivalents/ 7 for the purpose of avoid- 
ing a questionable assumption, we are unable to think of 
the combination of such definite weights, without supposing 
it to take place between definite numbers of definite parti- 
cles. And thus it would appear that the Newtonian view is 
at any rate preferable to that of Boscovich. A dis- 

ciple of Boscovich, however, may reply that his master's 
theory is involved in that of Newton ; and cannot indeed be 
escaped. " What," he may ask, " is it that holds together 
the parts of these ultimate atoms? " " A cohesive force," 
his opponent must answer. " And what," he may continue, 
" is it that holds together the parts of any fragments into 
which, by sufficient force, an ultimate atom might be 
broken? " Again the answer must be — a cohesive force. 
" And what," he may still ask, " if the ultimate atom were, 
as we can imagine it to be, reduced to parts as small in pro- 
portion to it, as it is in proportion to a tangible mass of 
matter — what must give each part the ability to sustain it- 
self, and to occupy space? " Still there is no answer but — a 
cohesive force. Carry the process in thought as far as we 
may, until the extension of the parts is less than can be im- 
agined, we still cannot escape the admission of forces by 
which the extension is upheld; and we can find no limit 
until we arrive at the conception of centres of force without 
any extension. 

Matter then, in its ultimate nature, is as absolutely in- 
comprehensible as Space and Time. Frame what suppo- 
sitions we may, we find on tracing out their implications 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 57 

that they leave us nothing but a choice between opposite 
absurdities. 

§ 17. A body impelled by the hand is clearly perceived 
to move, and to move in a definite direction : there seems at 
first sight no possibility of doubting that its motion is real, 
or that it is towards a given point. Yet it is easy to show that 
we not only may be, but usually are, quite wrong in both 
these judgments. Here, for instance, is a ship which, for 
simplicity's sake, we will suppose to be anchored at the equa- 
tor with her head to the West. When the captain walks 
from stem to stern, in what direction does he move? East is 
the obvious answer — an answer which for the moment may 
pass without criticism. But now the anchor is heaved, and 
the vessel sails to the West with a velocity equal to that at 
which the captain walks. In what direction does he now 
move when he goes from stem to stern? You cannot say 
East, for the vessel is carrying him as fast towards the West 
as he walks to the East; and you cannot say West for the 
converse reason. In respect to surrounding space he is 
stationary; though to all on board the ship he seems to be 
moving. But now are we quite sure of this conclusion? 
— Is he really stationary? When we take into account the 
Earth's motion round its axis, we find that instead of being 
stationary he is travelling at the rate of 1000 miles per hour 
to the East; so that neither the perception of one who looks 
at him, nor the inference of one who allows for the ship's 
motion, is anything like the truth. ~Nor indeed, on further 
consideration, shall we find this revised conclusion to be 
much better. Eor we have forgotten to allow for the 
Earth's motion in its orbit. This being some 68,000 miles 
per hour, it follows that, assuming the time to be midday, 
he is moving, not at the rate of 1000 miles per hour to the 
East, but at the rate of G7,000 miles per hour to the West. 
Nay, not even now have we discovered the true rate and the 
true direction of his movement. With the Earth's progress 



58 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

in its orbit, we have to join that of the whole Solar system 
towards the constellation Hercules; and when we do this, 
we perceive that he is moving neither East nor West, but in 
a line inclined to the plane of the Ecliptic, and at a velocity 
greater or less (according to the time of the year) than that 
above named. To which let us add, that were the dynamic 
arrangements of our sidereal system fully known to us, we 
should probably discover the direction and rate of his actual 
movement to differ considerably even from Ihese. How 

illusive are our ideas of Motion, is thus made sufficiently 
manifest. That which seems moving proves to be station- 
ary; that which seems stationary proves to be moving; 
while that which we conclude to be going rapidly in one 
direction, turns out to be going much more rapidly in the 
opposite direction. And so we are taught that what we are 
conscious of is not the real motion of any object, either in its 
rate or direction; but merely its motion as measured from 
an assigned position — either the position we ourselves oc- 
cupy or some other. Yet in this very process of concluding 
that the motions we perceive are not the real motions, we 
tacitly asume that there are real motions. In revising our 
successive judgments concerning a body's course or velo- 
city, we take for granted that there is an actual course and 
an actual velocity — we take for granted that there are fixed 
points in space with respect to which all motions are abso- 
lute ; and we find it impossible to rid ourselves of this idea. 
Nevertheless, absolute motion cannot even be imagined, 
much less known. Motion as taking place apart from those 
limitations of space which we habitually associate with it, is 
totally unthinkable. For motion is change of place ; but in 
unlimited space, change of place is inconceivable, because 
place itself is inconceivable. Place can be conceived only by 
reference to other places; and in the absence of objects dis- 
persed through space, a place could be conceived only in 
relation to the limits of space; whence it follows that in 
unlimited space, place cannot be conceived — all places must 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 59 

be equidistant from boundaries that do not exist. Thus 
while we are obliged to think that there is an absolute mo- 
tion, we find absolute motion incomprehensible. 

Another insuperable difficulty presents itself when 
Ave contemplate the transfer of Motion. Habit blinds 
us to the marvelousness of this phenomenon. Familiar 
with the fact from childhood, we see nothing remark- 
able in the ability of a moving thing to generate 
movement in a thing that is stationary. It is, how- 
ever, impossible to understand it. In what respect 
does a body after impact differ from itself before impact? 
What is this added to it which does not sensibly affect any 
of its properties and yet enables it to traverse space? 
Here is an object at rest and here is the same object moving. 
In the one state it has no tendency to change its place ; but 
in the other it is obliged at each instant to assume a new 
position. What is it which will for ever go on producing 
tli is effect without being exhausted? and how does it dwell 
in the object? The motion you say has been communicated. 
But how? — What has been communicated? The striking 
body has not transferred a thing to the body struck ; and it 
is equally out of the question to say that it has transferred 
an attribute. What then has it transferred? 

Once more there is the old puzzle concerning the con- 
nexion between Motion and Rest. We daily witness the 
gradual retardation and final stoppage of things projected 
from the hand or otherwise impelled; and we equally often 
witness the change from Rest to Motion produced by the 
application of force. But truly to represent these transi- 
tions in thought, we find impossible. For a breach of the 
law of continuity seems necessarily involved; and yet no 
breach of it is conceivable. A body travelling at a given 
velocity e;u mot be brought to a state of rest, or no velocity, 
without passing through all intermediate velocities. At 
firsl Bight nothing seems easier than to imagine it doing tlii-. 
It is quite possible to think of its motion as diminishing in- 



60 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

sensibly until it becomes infinitesimal ; and many will think 
equally possible to pass in thought from infinitesimal motion 
to no motion. But this is an error. Mentally follow out the 
decreasing velocity as long as you please, and there still 
remains some velocity. Halve and again halve the rate of 
movement for ever, yet movement still exists; and the 
smallest movement is separated by an impassable gap from 
no movement. As something, however minute, is infinitely 
great in comparison with nothing; so is even the least con- 
ceivable motion, infinite as compared with rest. The 
converse perplexities attendant on the transition from Rest 
to Motion, need not be specified. These, equally with the 
foregoing, show us that though we are obliged to think of 
such changes as actually occurring, their occurrence cannot 
be realized. 

Thus neither when considered in connexion with Space, 
nor when considered in connexion with Matter, nor when 
considered in connexion with Rest, do we find that Motion 
is truly cognizable. All efforts to understand its essential 
nature do but bring us to alternative impossibilities of 
thought. 

§18. On lifting a chair, the force exerted we regard as 
equal to that antagonistic force called the weight of the 
chair; and we cannot think of these as equal without think- 
ing of them as like in kind; since equality is conceivable 
only between things that are connatural. The axiom that 
action and reaction are equal and in opposite directions, 
commonly exemplified by this very instance of muscular 
effort versus weight, cannot be mentally realized on any 
other condition. Yet, contrariwise, it is incredible that the 
force as existing in the chair really resembles the force as 
present to our minds. It scarcely needs to point out that the 
weight of the chair produces in us various feelings according 
as we support it by a single finger, or the whole hand, or the 
leg; and hence to argue that as it cannot be like all these 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 61 

sensations there is no reason to believe it like any. It suf- 
fices to remark that since the force as known to ns is an 
affection of consciousness, we cannot conceive the force ex- 
isting in the chair nnder the same form without endowing 
the chair with consciousness. So that it is absnrd to think 
of Force as in itself like our sensation of it, and yet neces- 
sary so to think of it if we realize it in consciousness at all. 
How, again, can we understand the connexion between 
Force and Matter? Matter is known to us only through its 
manifestations of Force: our ultimate test of Matter is the 
ability to resist: abstract its resistance and there remains 
nothing but empty extension. Yet, on the other hand, re- 
sistance is equally unthinkable apart from Matter — apart 
from something extended. Xot only, as pointed out some 
pages back, are centres of force devoid of extension unimag- 
inable; but, as an inevitable corollary, we cannot imagine 
either extended or unextended centres of force to attract 
and repel other such centres at a distance, without the inter- 
mediation of some kind of matter. AVe have here to remark, 
what could not without anticipation be remarked when 
treating of Matter, that the hypothesis of Xewton, equally 
with that of Boscovich, is open to the charge that it supposes 
one thing to act upon another through a space which is abso- 
lutely empty — a supposition which cannot be represented 
in thought. This charge is indeed met by the introduction 
of a hypothetical fluid existing between the atoms or cen- 
tres. But the problem j^ nut thus solved: it is simply shift- 
ed, and re-appears when the constitution of this fluid is in- 
quired into. I low impossible it is to elude the diffi- 
culty presented by the transfer of Force through space, is 
best -(-en in the case of astronomical forces. The Sun acts 
upon us in such way as to produce the sensations of light and 
heat; and we have ascertained that between the cause as ex- 
isting in the Sun, and the effect as experienced on the Earth, 
a lap-e of about eight minutes occurs: whence unavoidably 
result in us, the conceptions of both a force and a motion. 



62 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

So that for the assumption of a luminif erous ether, there i9 
the defence, not only that the exercise of force through 
95,000,000 of miles of absolute vacuum is inconceivable, 
but also that it is impossible to conceive motion in the ab- 
sence of something moved. Similarly in the case of gravi- 
tation. Newton described himself as unable to think that 
the attraction of one body for another at a distance, could be 
exerted in the absence of an intervening medium. But now 
let us ask how much the forwarder we are if an intervening 
medium be assumed. This ether whose undulations ac- 
cording to the received hypothesis constitute heat and light, 
and which is the vehicle of gravitation — how is it consti- 
tuted ? We must regard it, in the way that physicists do re- 
gard it, as composed of atoms which attract and repel each 
other — infinitesimal it may be in comparison with those of 
ordinary matter, but still atoms. And remembering that 
this ether is imponderable, we are obliged to conclude that 
the ratio between the interspaces of these atoms and the 
atoms themselves is incommensurably greater than the like 
ratio in ponderable matter; else the densities could not be 
incommensurable. Instead then of a direct action by the 
Sun upon the Earth without anything intervening, we have 
to conceive the Sun's action propagated through a medium 
whose molecules are probably as small relatively to their in- 
terspaces as are the Sun and Earth compared with the space 
between them: we have to conceive these infinitesimal 
molecules acting on each other through absolutely vacant 
spaces which are immense in comparison with their own di- 
mensions. How is this conception easier than the other? 
We still have mentally to represent a body as acting where 
it is not, and in the absence of anything by which its action 
may be transferred ; and what matters it whether this takes 
place on a large or a small scale? We see therefore that 

the exercise of Eorce is altogether unintelligible. We can- 
not imagine it except through the instrumentality of some- 
thing having extension; and yet when we have assumed 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 63 

this something, we find the perplexity is not got rid of but- 
only postponed. AYe are obliged to conclude that matter, 
whether ponderable or imponderable, and whether aggre- 
gated or in its hypothetical units, acts upon matter through 
absolutely vacant space ; and yet this conclusion is positively 
unthinkable. 

Yet another difficulty of conception, converse in nature 
but equally insurmountable, must be added. If, on the 
one hand, we cannot in thought see matter acting upon 
matter through a vast interval of space which is absolutely 
void ; on the other hand, that the gravitation of one particle 
of matter towards another, and towards all others, should 
be absolutely the same whether the intervening space is 
filled with matter or not, is incomprehensible. I lift from 
the ground, and continue to hold, a pound weight. Xow, 
into the vacancy between it and the ground, is introduced 
a mass of matter of any kind whatever, in any state what- 
ever — hot or cold, liquid or solid, transparent or opaque, 
light or dense ; and the gravitation of the weight is entirely 
unaffected. The whole Earth, as well as each individual 
of the infinity of particles composing the Earth, acts on the 
pound in absolutely the same way, whatever intervenes, or 
if nothing intervenes. Through eight thousand miles of the 
Earth's substance, each molecule at the antipodes affects 
each molecule of the weight I hold, in utter indifference to 
the fulness or emptiness of the space between them. So 
that each portion of matter in its dealings with remote por- 
tions, treats all intervening portions as though they did not 
exist ; and yet, at the same time it recognizes their existence 
with scrupulous exactness in its direct dealings with them. 
AYe have to regard gravitation as a force to which every- 
thing in the Universe is at once perfectly opaque in respect of 
itself and perfectly transparent in respect of other things. 

While then it is impossible to form any idea of Force 
in itself, it is equally impossible to comprehend its mode 
of exercise. 



64 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

§ 19. Turning now from the outer to the inner world, 
let us contemplate, not the agencies to which we ascribe our 
subjective modifications, but the subjective modifications 
themselves. These constitute a series. Difficult as we find 
it distinctly to separate and individualize them, it is never- 
theless beyond question that our states of consciousness oc- 
cur in succession. 

Is this chain of states of consciousness infinite or finite ? 
We cannot say infinite ; not only because we have indirectly 
reached the conclusion that there was a period when it com- 
menced, but also because all infinity is inconceivable — an 
infinite series included. We cannot say finite ; for we have 
no knowledge of either of its ends. Go back in memory as 
far as we may, we are wholly unable to identify our first 
states of consciousness: the perspective of our thoughts 
vanishes in a dim obscurity where we can make out nothing. 
Similarly at the other extreme. We have no immediate 
knowledge of a termination to the series at a future time; 
and we cannot really lay hold of that temporary termination 
of the series reached at the present moment. For the state 
of consciousness recognized by us as our last, is not truly our 
last. That any mental affection may be contemplated as one 
of the series, it must be remembered — represented in 
thought, not presented. The truly last state of conscious- 
ness is that which is passing in the very act of contemplating 
a state just past — that in which we are thinking of the one 
before as the last. So that the proximate end of the chain 
eludes us, as well as the remote end. 

" But,' 7 it may be said, " though we cannot directly 
Jcnow consciousness to be finite in duration, because neither 
of its limits can be actually reached; yet we can very well 
conceive it to be so." ~No : not even this is true. In the first 
place, we cannot conceive the terminations of that conscious- 
ness which alone we really know — our own — any more than 
we can j^rceive its terminations. For in truth the two acts 
are here one. In either case such terminations must be, 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 65 

as above said, not presented in thought, but represented; and 
they must be represented as in the act of occurring. Npw to 
represent the termination of consciousness as occurring in 
ourselves, is to think of ourselves as contemplating the cessa- 
tion of the last state of consciousness; and this implies a 
supposed continuance of consciousness after its last state, 
which is absurd. In the second place, if we regard the mat- 
ter objectively — if we study the phenomena as occurring in 
others, or in the abstract, we are equally foiled. Conscious- 
ness implies perpetual change and the perpetual establish- 
ment of relations between its successive phases. To be 
known at all, any mental affection must be known as such or 
such — as like these foregoing ones or unlike those: if it is 
not thought of in connexion with others — not distinguished 
or identified by comparison with others, it is not recognized 
— is not a state of consciousness at all. A last state of con- 
sciousness, then, like any other, can exist only through a per- 
ception of its relations to previous states. But such percep- 
tion of its relations must constitute a state later than the last, 
which is a contradiction. Or to put the difficulty in another 
form : — If ceaseless change of state is the condition on which 
alone consciousness exists, then when the supposed last state 
has been reached by the completion of the preceding change, 
change has ceased; therefore consciousness has ceased; 
therefore the supposed last state is not a state of conscious- 
ness at all; therefore there can be no last state of conscious- 
ness. In short, the perplexity is like that presented by the 
relations of Motion and Rest. As we found it was impossi- 
ble really to conceive Rest becoming Motion or Motion 
becoming Rest; so here we find it is impossible really to 
conceive either the beginning or the ending of those changes 
which constitute consciousne— . 

Hence, while we are unable either to believe or to con- 
ceive that the duration of consciousness is infinite, we are 
equally unable either to know it as finite, or to conceive it 
as finite. 



6(3 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

§ 20. Nor do we meet with, any greater success when, in- 
stead of the extent of consciousness, we consider its sub- 
stance. The question — What is this that thinks? admits of 
no better solution than the question to which we have just 
found none but inconceivable answers. 

The existence of each individual as known to himself, 
has been always held by mankind at large, the most incon- 
trovertible of truths. To say — " I am as sure of it as I am 
sure that I exist," is, in common speech, the most emphatic 
expression of certainty. And this fact of personal existence, 
testified to by the universal consciousness of men, has been 
made the basis of sundry philosophies; whence may be 
drawn the inference, that it is held by thinkers, as well as by 
the vulgar, to be beyond all facts unquestionable. 

Belief in the reality of self, is, indeed, a belief which no 
hypothesis enables us to escape. What shall we say of these 
successive impressions and ideas which constitute conscious- 
ness ? Shall we say that they are the affections of something 
called mind, which, as being the subject of them, is the real 
ego f If we say this, we manifestly imply that the ego is an 
entity. Shall we assert that these impressions and ideas are 
the mere superficial changes wrought on some thinking sub- 
stance, but are themselves the very body of this substance — 
are severally the modified forms which it from moment to 
moment assumes? This hypothesis, equally with the fore- 
going, implies that the individual exists as a permanent and 
distinct being ; since modifications necessarily involve some- 
thing modified. Shall we then betake ourselves to the scep- 
tic's position, and argue that we know nothing more than our 
impressions and ideas themselves — that these are to us the 
only existences; and that the personality said to underlie 
them is a mere fiction ? We do not even thus escape ; since 
this proposition, verbally intelligible but really unthinkable, 
itself makes the assumption which it professes to repudiate. 
For how can consciousness be wholly resolved into impres- 
sions and ideas, when an impression of necessity implies 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 67 

something impressed? Or again, how can the sceptic who 
has decomposed his consciousness into impressions and ideas, 
explain the fact that he considers them as his impressions and 
ideas ? Or once more, if, as he must, he admits that he has 
an impression of his personal existence, what warrant can 
he show for rejecting this impression as unreal while he ac- 
cepts all his other impressions as real? Unless he can give 
satisfactory answers to these queries, which he cannot, he 
must abandon his conclusions; and must admit the reality 
of the individual mind. 

But now, unavoidable as is this belief — established 
though it is not only by the assent of mankind at large, en- 
dorsed by divers philosophers, but by the suicide of the scep- 
tical argument — it is yet a belief admitting of no justifica- 
tion by reason: nay, indeed, it is a belief which reason, 
when pressed for a distinct answer, rejects. One of the most 
recent writers who has touched upon this question — Mr 
Mansel — does indeed contend that in the consciousness of 
self, we have a piece of real knowledge. The validity of 
immediate intuition he holds in this case unquestionable: 
remarking that " let system-makers say what they will, the 
unsophisticated sense of mankind refuses to acknowledge 
that mind is but a bundle of states of consciousness, as mat- 
ter is (possibly) a bundle of sensible qualities." On which 
position the obvious comment is, that it does not seem alto- 
gether a consistent one for a Kantist, who pays but small re- 
spect to " the unsophisticated sense of mankind " when it 
testifies to the objectivity of space. Passing over this, how- 
ever, it may readily be shown that a cognition of self, prop- 
erly so called, is absolutely negatived by the laws of thought. 
The fundamental condition to all consciousness, emphatic- 
ally insisted upon by Mr Mansel in common with Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton and others, is the antithesis of subject and 
object. And en \\\\> " primitive dualism of consciousness," 
" from which the explanations of philosophy must take their 
start," Mr Man-el founds bis refutation of the German 



68 ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. 

absolutists. But now, what is the corollary from this doc- 
trine, as bearing on the consciousness of self? The mental 
act in which self is known, implies, like every other mental 
act, a perceiving subject and a perceived object. If, then, 
the pbject perceived is self, what is the subject that per- 
ceives? or if it is the true self which thinks, what other self 
can it be that is thought of? Clearly, a true cognition of 
self implies a state in which the knowing and the known are 
one — in which subject and object are identified; and this 
Mr Mansel rightly holds to be the annihilation of both. 

So that the personality of which each is conscious, and 
of which the existence is to each a fact beyond all others the 
most certain, is yet a thing which cannot truly be known 
at all: knowledge of it is forbidden by the very nature of 
thought. 

§ 21. Ultimate Scientific Ideas, then, are all representa- 
tive of realities that cannot be comprehended. After no 
matter how great a progress in the colligation of facts and 
the establishment of generalizations ever wider and wider 
— after the merging of limited and derivative truths in 
truths that are larger and deeper has been carried no matter 
how far; the fundamental truth remains as much beyond 
reach as ever. The explanation of that which is explicable, 
does but bring out into greater clearness the inexplicable- 
ness of that which remains behind. Alike in the external 
and the internal worlds, the man of science sees himself in 
the midst of perpetual changes of which he can discover 
neither the beginning nor the end. If, tracing back the 
evolution of things, he allows himself to entertain the hypo- 
thesis that the Universe once existed in a diffused form, he 
finds it utterly impossible to conceive how this came to be so ; 
and equally, if he speculates on the future, he can assign no 
limit to the grand succession of phenomena ever unfolding 
themselves before him. In like manner if he looks inward, 
he perceives that both ends of the thread of consciousness. 



ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS. G9 

are beyond his grasp ; nay, even beyond his power to think 
of as having existed or as existing in time to come. When, 
again, he turns from the succession of phenomena, external 
or internal, to their intrinsic nature, he is just as much at 
fault. Supposing him in every case able to resolve the ap- 
pearances, properties, and movements of things, into mani- 
festations of Force in Space and Time; he still finds that 
Force, Space, and Time pass all understanding. Similarly, 
though the analysis of mental actions may finally bring him 
down to sensations, as the original materials out of winch 
all thought is woven, yet he is little forwarder; for he can 
give no account either of sensations themselves or of that 
something which is conscious of sensations. Objective and 
subjective things he thus ascertains to be alike inscrutable in 
their substance and genesis. In all directions his investiga- 
tions eventually bring him face to face with an insoluble 
enigma; and he ever more clearly perceives it to be an in- 
soluble enigma. He learns at once the greatness and the lit- 
tleness of the human intellect — its power in dealing with all 
that comes within the range of experience; its impotence in 
dealing with all that transcends experience. He realizes 
with a special vividness the utter incomprehensibleness of 
the amplest fact, considered in itself. He, more than any 
other, truly knows that in its ultimate essence nothing can 
be known. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

§ 22. The same conclusion is thus arrived at, from 
whichever point we set out. If, respecting the origin and 
nature of things, we make some assumption, we find that 
through an inexorable logic it inevitably commits us to al- 
ternative impossibilities of thought; and this holds true of 
every assumption that can be imagined. If, contrariwise, 
we make no assumption, but set out from the sensible prop- 
erties of surrounding objects, and, ascertaining their special 
laws of dependence, go on to merge these in laws more and 
more general, until we bring them all under some most gen- 
eral laws ; we still find ourselves as far as ever from knowing 
what it is which manifests these properties to us : clearly as 
we seem to know it, our apparent knowledge proves on ex- 
amination to be utterly irreconcilable with itself. Ultimate 
religious ideas and ultimate scientific ideas, alike turn out 
to be merely symbols of the actual, not cognitions of it. 

The conviction, so reached, that human intelligence is 
incapable of absolute knowledge, is one that has been slowly 
gaining ground as civilization has advanced. Each new 
ontological theory, from time to time propounded in lieu of 
previous ones shown to be untenable, has been followed by a 
new criticism leading to a new scepticism. All possible con- 
ceptions have been one by one tried and found wanting; and 
so the entire field of speculation has been gradually exhaust- 
ed without positive result: the only result arrived at being 

70 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 71 

the negative one above stated — that the reality existing 
behind all appearances is, and must ever be, unknown. To 
this conclusion almost every thinker of note has subscribed. 
'' With the exception/' says Sir William Hamilton, " of a 
few late Absolutist theorisers in Germany, this is, perhaps, 
the truth of all others most harmoniously re-echoed by 
every philosopher of every school." And among these he 
names — Protagoras, Aristotle, St. Augustin, Boethius, 
Averroes, Albertus Magnus, Gerson, Leo Hebrseus, Me- 
lancthon, Scaliger, Francis Piccolomini, Giordano Bruno, 
Campanella, Bacon, Spinoza, Xewton, Kant. 

It yet remains to point out how this belief may be estab- 
lished rationally, as well as empirically. Xot only is it that, 
as in the earlier thinkers above named, a vague perception of 
the inscrutableness of things in themselves results from dis- 
covering the illusiveness of sense-impressions ; and not only 
is it that, as shown in the foregoing chapters, definite experi- 
ments evolve alternative impossibilities of thought out of 
every ultimate conception we can frame; but it is that the 
relativity of our knowledge is demonstrable analytically. 
The induction drawn from general and special experiences, 
may be confirmed by a deduction from the nature of our 
intelligence. Two ways of reaching such a deduction exist. 
Proof that our cognitions are not, and never can be, abso- 
lute, is obtainable by analyzing either the product of 
thought, or the process of thought. Let us analyze each. 

§ 23. If, when walking through the fields some day in 
September, you hear a rustle a few yards in advance, and 
on observing the ditch-side where it occurs, see the herbage 
agitated, you will probably turn towards the spot to learn by 
what this Bound and motion are produced. A.8 you approach 
there flutters into the ditch, a partridge; on seeing which 
your curiosity is satisfied — you have wlmi you call an expla- 
nation of the appearances. The explanation, mark, amounts 
to this; that whereas throughout life you have had countless 



72 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

experiences of disturbance among small stationary bodies, 
accompanying the movement of other bodies among them, 
and have generalized the relation between such disturbances 
and such movements, you consider this particular disturb- 
ance explained, on finding it to present, an instance of the 
like relation. Suppose you catch the partridge; and, 

wishing to ascertain why it did not escape, examine it, and 
find at one spot, a slight trace of blood upon its feathers. 
You now ^understand as you say, what has disabled the par- 
tridge. It has been wounded by a sportsman — adds another 
case to the many cases already seen by you, of birds being 
killed or injured by the shot discharged at them from fowl- 
ing-pieces. And in assimilating this case to other such cases, 
consists your understanding of it. But now, on con- 

sideration, a difficulty suggests itself. Only a single shot 
has struck the partridge, and that not in a vital place: the 
wings are uninjured, as are also those muscles which move 
them; and the creature proves by its struggles that it has 
abundant strength. Why then, you inquire of yourself, 
does it not fly ? Occasion favouring, you put the question 
to an anatomist, who furnishes you with a solution. He 
points out that this solitary shot has passed close to the place 
at which the nerve supplying the wing-muscles of one side, 
diverges from the spine; and that a slight injury to this 
nerve, extending even to the rupture of a few fibres, may, 
by preventing a perfect co-ordination in the actions of the 
two wings, destroy the power of flight. You are no longer 
puzzled. But what has happened? — what has changed 
your state from one of perplexity to one of comprehension f 
Simply the disclosure of a class of previously known cases, 
along with which you can include this case. The connex- 
ion between lesions of the nervous system and paralysis of 
limbs has been already many times brought under your no- 
tice ; and you here find a relation of cause and effect that is 
essentially similar. 

Let us suppose you are led on to make further inquiries 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 73 

concerning organic actions, which, conspicuous and remark- 
able as they are, you had not before cared to understand. 
How is respiration effected? you ask — why does air periodi- 
cally rush into the lungs? The answer is that in the higher 
vertebrata, as in ourselves, influx of air is caused by an en- 
largement of the thoracia cavity, due, partly to depression 
of the diaphragm, partly to elevation of the ribs. But how 
does elevation of the ribs enlarge the cavity? In reply the 
anatomist shows you that the plane of each pair of ribs 
makes an acute angle with the spine ; that this angle widens 
when the movable ends of the ribs are raised; and he makes 
you realize the consequent dilatation of the cavity, by point- 
ing out how the area of a parallelogram increases as its an- 
gles approach to right angles — you understand this special 
fact when you see it to be an instance of a general geometri- 
cal fact. There still arises, however, the question — why 
does the air rush into this enlarged cavity? To which comes 
the answer that, when the thoracic cavity is enlarged, the 
contained air, partially relieved from pressure, expands, and 
so loses some of its resisting power; that hence it opposes to 
the pressure of the external air a less pressure ; and that as 
air, like every other fluid, presses equally in all directions, 
motion must result along any line in which the resistance is 
less than elsewhere; whence follows an inward current. 
And this interpretation you recognize as one, when a few 
facts of like kind, exhibited more plainly in a visible fluid 
such as water, are cited in illustration. Again, when 

it was pointed out that the limbs are compound levers acting 
in essentially the same way as levers of iron or wood, you 
might consider yourself as having obtained a partial ration- 
ale of animal movements. The contraction of a muscle, 
seeming before utterly unaccountable, would seem less un- 
accountable were you shown how, by a galvanic current, a 
scries of soft iron magnets could be made to shorten itself, 
through the attraction of each magnet for its neighbours: 
— an alleged analogy which especially answers the pup* 
7 



74 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

pose of our argument; since, whether real or fancied, it 
equally illustrates the mental illumination that results on 
finding a class of cases within which a particular case may 
possibly be included. And it may be further noted how, in 
the instance here named, an additional feeling of compre- 
hension arises on remembering that the influence conveyed 
through the nerves to the muscles, is, though not positively 
electric, yet a form of force nearly allied to the elec- 
tric. Similarly when you learn that animal heat arises 
from chemical combination, and so is evolved as heat is 
evolved in other chemical combinations — when you learn 
that the absorption of nutrient fluids through the coats of 
the intestines, is an instance of osmotic action — when you 
learn that the changes undergone by food during digestion, 
.are like changes artificially producible in the laboratory; 
you regard yourself as knowing something about the natures 
<of these phenomena. 

Observe now what we have been doing. Turning to the 
.general question, let us note where these successive interpre- 
tations have carried us. We began with quite special and 
concrete facts. In explaining each, and afterwards explain- 
ing the more general facts of which they are instances, we 
liave got down to certain highly general facts: — to a geo- 
aneftrical principle or property of space, to a simple law of 
mechanical action, to a law of fluid equilibrium — to truths 
in physics, in chemistry, in thermology, in electricity. The 
particular phenomena with which we set out, have been 
merged in larger and larger groups of phenomena; and as 
they have been so merged, we have arrived at solutions that 
we consider profound in proportion as this process has been 
carried far. Still deeper explanations are simply further 
steps in the same direction. When, for instance, it is asked 
why the law of action of the lever is what it is, or why fluid 
equilibrium and fluid motion exhibit the relations which 
they do, the answer furnished by mathematicians consists 
in the disclosure of the principle of virtual velocities — a 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 75 

principle holding true alike in fluids and solids — a principle 
under which the others are comprehended. And similarly, 
the insight obtained into the phenomena of chemical combi- 
nation, heat, electricity, &c, implies that a rationale of 
them, when found, will be the exposition of some highly 
general fact respecting the constitution of matter, of which 
chemical, electrical, and thermal facts, are merely different 
manifestations. 

Is this process limited or unlimited ? Can we go on for 
ever explaining classes of facts by including them in larger 
classes; or must we eventually come to a largest class? The 
supposition that the process is unlimited, were any one ab- 
surd enough to espouse it, would still imply that an ultimate 
explanation could not be reached; since infinite time would 
be required to reach it. While the unavoidable conclusion 
that it is limited (proved not only by the finite sphere of 
observation open to us, but also by the diminution in the 
number of generalizations that necessarily accompanies in- 
crease of their breadth) equally implies that the ultimate 
fact cannot be understood. For if the successively deeper 
interpretations of nature which constitute advancing knowl- 
edge, are merely successive inclusions of special truths in 
general truths, and of general truths in truths still more gen- 
eral; it obviously follows that the most general truth, not 
admitting of inclusion in any other, does not admit of inter- 
pretation. Manifestly, as the most general cognition at 
which we arrive cannot be reduced to a more general one, it 
cannot be understood. Of necessity, therefore, explanation 
must eventually bring us down to the inexplicable. The 
deepest truth which we can get at, must be unaccountable. 
Comprehension must become something other than compre- 
hension, before the ultimate fact can be comprehended. 

§ 24. The inference whieh we tlms find forced upon us 
when we analyze the product of thought, as exhibited ob- 
jectively in scientific generalizations, is equally forced upon 



76 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

us by an analysis of the process of thought, as exhibited sub- 
jectively in consciousness. The demonstration of the neces- 
sarily relative character of our knowledge, as deduced from 
the nature of intelligence, has been brought to its most 
definite shape by Sir William Hamilton. I cannot here do 
better than extract from his essay on the " Philosophy of 
the Unconditioned," the passage containing the substance of 
his doctrine. 

" The mind can conceive," he argues, " and consequent- 
ly can know, only the limited, and the conditionally limited. 
The unconditionally unlimited, or the Infinite^ the uncondi- 
tionally limited, or the Absolute, cannot positively be con- 
strued to the mind ; they can be conceived, only by a think- 
ing away from, or abstraction of, those very conditions 
under which thought itself is realized; consequently, the 
notion of the Unconditioned is only negative, — negative of 
the conceivable itself. For example, on the one hand we 
can positively conceive, neither an absolute whole, that is, a 
whole so great, that we cannot also conceive it as a relative 
part of a still greater whole ; nor an absolute part, that is, a 
part so small, that we cannot also conceive it as a relative 
whole, divisible into smaller parts. On the other hand, we 
cannot positively represent, or realize, or construe to the 
mind (as here understanding and imagination coincide), an 
infinite whole, for this could only be done by the infinite 
synthesis in thought of finite wholes, which would itself re- 
quire an infinite time for its accomplishment; nor, for the 
same reason, can we follow out in thought an infinite divisi- 
bility of parts. The result is the same, whether we apply 
the process to limitation in space, in time, or in degree. 
The unconditional negation, and the unconditional aifirma- 
tion of limitation; in other words, the infinite and absolute, 
properly so called, are thus equally inconceivable to us. 

" As the conditionally limited (which we may briefly 
call the conditioned) is thus the only possible object of 
knowledge and of positive thought — thought necessarily 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 77 

supposes conditions. To think is to condition • and condi- 
tional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of 
thought. For, as the greyhound cannot outstrip his shadow, 
nor (by a more appropriate simile) the eagle outsoar the at- 
mosphere in which he floats, and by which alone he may 
be supported; so the mind cannot transcend that sphere 
of limitation, within and through which exclusively the 
possibility of thought is realized. Thought is only of 
the conditioned; because, as we have said, to think is sim- 
ply to condition. The absolute is conceived merely by a 
negation of conceivability ; and all that we know, is only 
known as 

' won from the void and formless infinite.' 

How, indeed, it could ever be doubted that thought is only 
of the conditioned, may well be deemed a matter of the pro- 
f oundest admiration. Thought cannot transcend conscious- 
ness; consciousness is only possible under the antithesis of 
a subject and object of thought, known only in correlation, 
and mutually limiting each other; while, independently of 
this, all that we know either of subject or object, either 
of mind or matter, is only a knowledge in each of the par- 
ticular, of the plural, of the different, of the modified, of the 
phenomenal. We admit that the consequence of this doc- 
trine is, — that philosophy, if viewed as more than a science 
of the conditioned, is impossible. Departing from the par- 
ticular, we admit, that we can never, in our highest general- 
izations, rise above the finite; that our knowledge, whether 
of mind or matter, can be nothing more than a knowledge of 
the relative manifestations of an existence, which in itself it 
is our highest wisdom to recognize as beyond the reach of 
philosophy, — in the language of St Austin, — ' cognoscendo 
ignorari, et ignorando cognosci. 1 

" The conditioned is the mean between two extremes, — 
two inconditionatcs, exclusive of each other, neither of 
which can be conceived as possible, but of which, on the 
principles of contradiction and excluded middle, one must 



78 THE RELATIVITY OP ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

be admitted as necessary. On this opinion, therefore, reason 
is shown to be weak, but not deceitful. The mind is not rep- 
resented as conceiving two propositions subversive of each 
other, as equally possible ; but only, as unable to understand 
as possible, either of two extremes; one of which, however, 
on the ground of their mutual repugnance, it is compelled 
to recognize as true. We are thus taught the salutary 
lesson, that the capacity of thought is not to be constituted 
into the measure of existence; and are warned from recog- 
nizing the domain of our knowledge as necessarily co-exten- 
sive with the horizon of our faith. And by a wonderful 
revelation, we are thus, in the very consciousness of our in- 
ability to conceive aught above the relative and finite, in- 
spired with a belief in the existence of something uncondi- 
tioned beyond the sphere of all comprehensible reality. " 

Clear and conclusive as this statement of the case ap- 
pears when carefully studied, it is expressed in so abstract a 
manner as to be not very intelligible to the general reader. 
A more popular presentation of it, with illustrative applica- 
tions, as given by Mr Mansel in his " Limits of Religious 
Thought," will make it more fully understood. The follow- 
ing extracts, which I take the liberty of making from his 
pages, will suffice. 

" The very conception of consciousness, in whatever 
mode it may be manifested, necessarily implies distinction 
between one object and another. To be conscious, we must 
be conscious of something; and that something can only be 
known, as that which it is, by being distinguished from that 
which it is not. But distinction is necessarily limitation; 
for, if one object is to be distinguished from another, it must 
possess some form of existence which the other has not, or it 
must not possess some form which the other has. But it is 
obvious the Infinite cannot be distinguished, as such, from 
the Finite, by the absence of any quality which the Finite 
possesses ; for such absence would be a limitation. Nor yet 
can it be distinguished by the presence of an attribute which 



THE RELATIVITY OP ALL KNOWLEDGE. 79 

the Finite has not ; for, as no finite part can be a constituent 
of an infinite whole, this differential characteristic must it- 
self be infinite ; and must at the same time have nothing in 
common with the finite. We are thus thrown back upon our 
former impossibility ; for this second infinite will be distin- 
guished from the finite by the absence of qualities which the 
latter possesses. A consciousness of the Infinite as such thus 
necessarily involves a self-contradiction; for it implies the 
recognition, by limitation and difference, of that which can 
only be given as unlimited and indifferent. * * * 

" This contradiction, which is utterly inexplicable on the 
supposition that the infinite is a positive object of human 
thought, is at once accounted for, when it is regarded as the 
mere negation of thought. If all thought is limitation ;— if 
whatever we conceive is, by the very act of conception, 
regarded as finite, — the infinite, from a human point of 
view, is merely a name for the absence of those conditions 
under which thought is possible. To speak of a Conception 
of the Infinite is, therefore, at once to affirm those conditions 
and to deny them. The contradiction, which we discover in 
such a conception, is only that which we have ourselves 
placed there, by tacitly assuming the conceivability of the 
inconceivable. The condition of consciousness is distinc- 
tion; and condition of distinction is limitation. We can 
have no consciousness of Being in general which is not some 
Being in particular: a thing, in consciousness, is one thing 
out of many. In assuming the possibility of an infinite ob- 
ject of consciousness, I assume, therefore, that it is at the 
same time limited and unlimited; — actually something, 
without which it could not be an object of conscious- 
ness, and actually nothing, without which it could not be 
infinite. * * * 

" A second characteristic of Consciousness is, that it is 
only possible in the form of a relation. There must be a 
Subject, or person conscious, and an Object, or thing of 
which he is conscious. There can be no consciousness with- 



80 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

out the union of these two factors ; and, in that union, each 
exists only as it is related to the other. The subject is a sub- 
ject, only in so far as it is conscious of an object: the object 
is an object, only in so far as it is apprehended by a subject: 
and the destruction of either is the destruction of conscious- 
ness itself. It is thus manifest that a consciousness of the 
Absolute is equally self -contradictory with that of the Infi- 
nite. To be conscious of the Absolute as such, we must 
know that an object, which is given in relation to our con- 
sciousness, is identical with one which exists in its own na- 
ture, out of all relation to consciousness. But to know this 
identity, we must be able to compare the two together; and 
such a comparison is itself a contradiction. We are in fact 
required to compare that of which we are conscious with 
that of which we are not conscious; the comparison itself 
being an act of consciousness, and only possible through the 
consciousness of both its objects. It is thus manifest that, 
even if we could be conscious of the absolute, we could not 
possibly know that it is the absolute : and, as we can be con- 
scious of an object as such, only by knowing it to be what it 
is, this is equivalent to an admission that we cannot be con- 
scious of the absolute at all. As an object of consciousness, 
every thing is necessarily relative; and what a thing may 
be out of consciousness, no mode of consciousness can tell us. 
" This contradiction, again, admits of the same explana- 
tion as the former. Our whole notion of existence is neces- 
sarily relative; for it is existence as conceived by us. But 
Existence, as we conceive it, is but a name for the several 
ways in which objects are presented to our consciousness, — 
a general term, embracing a variety of relations. The Ab- 
solute, on the other hand, is a term expressing no object of 
thought, but only a denial of the relation by which thought 
is constituted. To assume absolute existence as an object of 
thought, is thus to suppose a relation existing when the re- 
lated terms exist no longer. An object of thought exists, as 
such, in and through its relation to a thinker; while the Ab- 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 81 

solute, as such, is independent of all relation. The Concep- 
tion of the Absolute thus implies at the same time the pres- 
ence and absence of the relation by which thought is consti- 
tuted; and our various endeavours to represent it are only 
so many modified forms of the contradiction involved in our 
original assumption. Here, too, the contradiction is one 
which we ourselves have made. It does not imply that the 
Absolute cannot exist; but it implies, most certainly, that 
we cannot conceive it as existing. " 

Here let me point out how the same general inference 
may be evolved from another fundamental condition of 
thought, omitted by Sir W. Hamilton, and not supplied by 
Mr Mansel; — a condition which, under its obverse aspect, 
we have already contemplated in the last section. Every 
complete act of consciousness, besides distinction and rela- 
tion, also implies likeness. Before it can become an idea, or 
constitute a piece of knowledge, a mental state must not only 
be known as separate in kind from certain foregoing states 
to which it is known as related by succession; but it must 
further be known as of the same kind with certain other 
foregoing states. That organization of changes which con- 
stitutes thinking, involves continuous integration as well as 
continuous differentiation. Were each new affection of the 
mind perceived simply as an affection in some way con- 
trasted with the preceding ones — were there but a chain of 
impressions, each of which as it arose was merely distin- 
guished from its predecessors; consciousness would be an 
utter chaos. To produce that orderly consciousness which 
we call intelligence, there requires the assimilation of each 
impression to others, that occurred earlier in the series. 
Both the successive mental states, and the successive rela- 
tions which they bear to each other, must be classified; and 
classification involves not only a parting of the unlike, but 
also a binding together of the like. In brief, a true cogni- 
tion is possible only through an accompanying recogni- 
tion. Should it be objected that if so, there cannot 



82 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

be a first cognition, and hence there can be no cognition; 
the reply is, that cognition proper arises gradually — that 
during the first stage of incipient intelligence, before the 
feelings produced by intercourse with the outer world have 
been put into order, there are no cognitions, stricly so called ; 
and that, as every infant shows us, these slowly emerge out 
of the confusion of unfolding consciousness as fast as the ex- 
periences are arranged into groups — as fast as the most fre- 
quently repeated sensations, and their relations to each 
other, become familiar enough to admit of their recognition 
as such or such, whenever they recur. Should it be further 
objected that if cognition pre-supposes recognition, there 
can be no cognition, even by an adult, of an object 
never before seen; there is still the sufficient answer that in 
so far as it is not assimilated to previously-seen objects, it is 
not known, and that it is known in so far as it is assimilated 
to them. Of this paradox the interpretation is, that an ob- 
ject is classifiable in various ways, with various degrees of 
completeness. An animal hitherto unknown (mark the 
word), though not referable to any established species or 
genus, is yet recognized as belonging to one of the larger di- 
visions — mammals, birds, reptiles, or fishes ; or should it be 
so anomalous that its alliance with any of these is not deter- 
minable, it may yet be classed as vertebrate or invertebrate ; 
or if it be one of those organisms of which it is doubtful 
whether the animal or vegetal characteristics predominate, 
it is still known as a living body; even should it be ques- 
tioned whether it is organic, it remains beyond question that 
it is a material object, and it is cognized by being recognized 
as such. Whence it is manifest that a thing is perfectly 
known only when it is in all respects like certain things pre- 
viously observed; that in proportion to the number of re- 
spects in which it is unlike them, is the extent to which it is 
unknown; and that hence when it has absolutely no attri- 
bute in common with anything else, it must be absolutely be- 
yond the bounds of knowledge. 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 83 

Observe the corollary which here concerns us. A cogni- 
tion of the Real, as distinguished from the Phenomenal, 
must, if it exists, conform to this law of cognition in general. 
The First Cause, The Infinite, the Absolute, to be known at 
all, must be classed. To be positively thought of, it must be 
thought of as such or such — as of this or that kind. Can it 
be like in kind to anything of which we have sensible 
experience ? Obviously not. Between the creating and the 
created, there must be a distinction transcending any of the 
distinctions existing between different divisions of the cre- 
ated. That which is uncaused cannot be assimilated to that 
which is caused: the two being, in the very naming, anti- 
thetically opposed. The Infinite cannot be grouped along 
with something that is finite ; since, in being so grouped, it 
must be regarded as non-infinite. It is impossible to put the 
Absolute in the same category with anything relative, so 
long as the Absolute is defined as that of which no necessary 
relation can be predicated. Is it then that the Actual, 
though unthinkable by classification with the Apparent, is 
thinkable by classification with itself ? This supposition is 
equally absurd with the other. It implies the plurality of 
the First Cause, the Infinite, the Absolute ; and this impli- 
cation is self-contradictory. There cannot be more than one 
First Cause; seeing that the existence of more than one 
would involve the existence of something necessitating 
more than one, which something would be the true First 
Cause. How self-destructive is the assumption of two or 
more Infinites, is manifest on remembering that such In- 
finites, by limiting each other, would become finite. And 
similarly, an Absolute which existed not alone but along 
with other Absolutes, would no longer be an absolute but a 
relative. The Unconditioned therefore, as classable neither 
with any form of the conditioned nor with any other Un- 
conditioned, cannot be classed at all. And to admit that it 
cannot be known as of such or such kind, is to admit that it 
is unknowable. 



84 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

Thus, from the very nature of thought, the relativity of 
our knowledge is inferable in three several ways. As we 
find by analyzing it, and as we see it objectively displayed 
in every proposition, a thought involves relation, difference, 
likeness. Whatever does not present each of these does not 
admit of cognition. And hence we may say that the Uncon- 
ditioned, as presenting none of them, is trebly unthinkable. 

§ 25. From yet another point of view we may discern 
the same great truth. If, instead of examining our intellec- 
tual powers directly as exhibited in the act of thought, or in- 
directly as exhibited in thought when expressed by words, 
we look at the connexion between the mind and the world, a 
like conclusion is forced upon us. In the very definition of 
Life, when reduced to its most abstract shape, this ultimate 
implication becomes visible. 

All vital actions, considered not separately but in their 
ensemble, have for their final purpose the balancing of cer- 
tain outer processes by certain inner processes. There are 
unceasing external forces tending to bring the matter of 
which organic bodies consist, into that state of stable equi- 
librium displayed by inorganic bodies; there are internal 
forces by which this tendency is constantly antagonized; 
and the perpetual changes which constitute Life, may be re- 
garded as incidental to the maintenance of the antagonism. 
To preserve the erect posture, for instance, we see that cer- 
tain weights have to be neutralized by certain strains : each 
limb or other organ, gravitating to the Earth and pulling 
down the parts to which it is attached, has to be preserved in 
position by the tension of sundry muscles; or in other 
words, the group of forces which would if allowed bring 
the body to the ground, has to be counterbalanced by an- 
other group of forces. Again, to keep up the temperature 
at a particular point, the external process of radiation and 
absorption of heat by the surrounding medium, must be met 
by a corresponding internal process of chemical combina- 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 85 

tion, whereby more heat may be evolved; to which add, 
that if from atmospheric changes the loss becomes greater 
or less, the production must become greater or less. And 
similarly throughout the organic actions in general. 

When we contemplate the lower kinds of life, we see 
that the correspondences thus maintained are direct and sim- 
ple; as in a plant, the vitality of which mainly consists in 
osmotic and chemical actions responding to the co-existence 
of light, heat, water, and carbonic acid around it. But in 
animals, and especially in the higher orders of them, the cor- 
respondences become extremely complex. Materials for 
growth and repair not being, like those which plants re- 
quire, everywhere present, but being widely dispersed and 
under special forms, have to be found, to be secured, and to 
be reduced to a fit state for assimilation. Hence the need 
for locomotion; hence the need for the senses; hence the 
need for prehensile and destructive appliances; hence the 
need for an elaborate digestive apparatus. Observe, how- 
ever, that these successive complications are essentially 
nothing but aids to the maintenance of the organic balance 
in its integrity, in opposition to those physical, chemical, 
and other agencies which tend to overturn it. And observe, 
moreover, that while these successive complications sub- 
serve this fundamental adaptation of inner to outer actions, 
they are themselves nothing else but further adapta- 
tions of inner to outer actions. For what are those 
movements by which a predatory creature pursues its 
prey, or by which its prey seeks to escape, but cer- 
tain changes in the organism fitted to meet certain 
changes in its environment? What is that compound 
operation which constitutes the perception of a piece 
of food, but a particular correlation of nervous modifications, 
answering to a particular correlation of physical properties? 
What is that process by which food when swallowed is re- 
duced to a fit form for assimilation, but a set of mechanical 
and chemical actions responding to the mechanical and 



86 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

chemical actions which distinguish the food? Whence it 
becomes manifest, that while Life in its simplest form is the 
correspondence of certain inner physico-chemical actions 
with certain outer physico-chemical actions, each advance to 
a higher form of Life consists in a better preservation of 
this primary correspondence by the establishment of other 
correspondences. 

Divesting this conception of all superfluities and reduc- 
ing it to its most abstract shape, we see that Life is definable 
as the continuous adjustment of internal relations to exter- 
nal relations. And when we so define it, we discover that 
the physical and the psychical life are equally comprehended 
by the definition. We perceive that this which we call In- 
telligence, shows itself when the external relations to which 
the internal ones are adjusted, begin to be numerous, com- 
plex, and remote in time or space; that every advance in 
Intelligence essentially consists in the establishment of 
more varied, more complete, and more involved adjust- 
ments; and that even the highest achievements of science 
are resolvable into mental relations of co-existence and se- 
quence, so co-ordinated as exactly to tally with certain re- 
lations of co-existence and sequence that occur externally. 
A caterpillar, wandering at random and at length finding its 
way on to a plant having a certain odour, begins to eat — has 
inside of it an organic relation between a particu- 
lar impression and a particular set of actions, an- 
swering to the relation outside of it, between scent 
and nutriment. The sparrow, guided by the more 
complex correlation of impressions which the colour, form, 
and movements of the caterpillar gave it; and guided also 
by other correlations which measure the position and dis- 
tance of the caterpillar; adjusts certain correlated muscular 
movements in such way as to seize the caterpillar. Through 
a much greater distance in space is the hawk, hovering 
above, affected by the relations of shape and motion which 
the sparrow presents; and the much more complicated and 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 87 

prolonged series of related nervous and muscular changes, 
gone through in correspondence with the sparrow's chang- 
ing relations of position, finally succeed when they are pre- 
cisely adjusted to these changing relations. In the fowler, 
experience has established a relation between the appear- 
ance and flight of a hawk and the destruction of other birds, 
including game ; there is also in him an established relation 
between those visual impressions answering to a certain dis- 
tance in space, and the range of his gun ; and he has learned, 
too, by frequent observation, what relations of position the 
sights must bear to a point somewhat in advance of the fly- 
ing bird, before he can fire with success. Similarly if we 
go back to the manufacture of the gun. By relations of co- 
existence between colour, density, and place in the earth, a 
particular mineral is known as one which yields iron; and 
the obtainment of iron from it, results when certain corre- 
lated acts of ours, are adjusted to certain correlated affinities 
displayed by ironstone, coal, and lime, at a high tempera- 
ture. If we descend yet a step further, and ask a chemist to 
explain the explosion of gunpowder, or apply to a mathema- 
tician for a theory of projectiles, we still find that special or 
general relations of co-existence and sequence between prop- 
erties, motions, spaces &c, are all they can teach us. And 
lastly, let it be noted that what we call truth, guiding us to 
successful action and the consequent maintenance of life, is 
simply the accurate correspondence of subjective to objec- 
tive relations ; while error, leading to failure and therefore 
towards death, is the absence of such accurate correspond- 
ence. 

If, then, Life in all its manifestations, inclusive of In- 
telligence in its highest forms, consists in the continuous 
adjustment of internal relations to external relations, the 
necessarily relative character of our knowledge becomes ob- 
vious. The simplest cognition being the establishment of 
some connexion between subjective states, answering to 
some connexion between objective agencies; and each sue- 



88 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

cessively more complex cognition being the establishment 
of some more involved connexion of such states, answering 
to some more involved connexion of such agencies; it is 
clear that the process, no matter how far it be carried, can 
never bring within the reach of Intelligence, either the 
states themselves or the agencies themselves. Ascertaining 
which things occur along with which, and what things fol- 
low what, supposing it to be pursued exhaustively, must 
still leave us with co-existences and sequences only. If 
every act of knowing is the formation of a relation in con- 
sciousness parallel to a relation in the environment, then the 
relativity of knowledge is self-evident — becomes indeed a 
truism. Thinking being relationing, no thought can ever 
express more than relations. 

And here let us not omit to mark how that to which our 
intelligence is confined, is that with which alone our intelli- 
gence is concerned. The knowledge within our reach, is the 
only knowledge that can be of service to us. This mainten- 
ance of a correspondence between internal actions and exter- 
nal actions, which both constitutes our life at each moment 
and is the means whereby life is continued through subse- 
quent moments, merely requires that the agencies acting 
upon us shall be known in their co-existences and sequences, 
and not that they shall be known in themselves. If x and y 
are two uniformly connected properties in some outer ob- 
ject, while a and b are the effects they produce in our con- 
sciousness ; and if while the property x produces in us the 
indifferent mental state a, the property y produces in us the 
painful mental state b (answering to a physical injury) ; 
then, all that is requisite for our guidance, is, that x being 
the uniform accompaniment of y externally, a shall be the 
uniform accompaniment of b internally ; so that when, by 
the presence of a?, a is produced in consciousness, J, or 
rather the idea of b, shall follow it, and excite the motions 
by which the effect of y may be escaped. The sole need is 
that a and b and the relation between them, shall always an- 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 89 

swer to x and y and the relation between them. It matters 
nothing to us if a and b are like x and y or not. Conld they 
be exactly identical with them, we should not be one whit 
the better off; and their total dissimilarity is no disadvan- 
tage to us. 

Deep down then in the very nature of Life, the relativ- 
ity of our knowledge is discernible. The analysis of vital 
actions in general, leads not only to the conclusions that 
things in themselves cannot be known to us ; but also to the 
conclusion that knowledge of them, were it possible, would 
be useless. 

§ 26. There still remains the final question — What 
must w r e say concerning that which transcends knowledge? 
Are we to rest wholly in the consciousness of phenomena ? — 
is the result of inquiry to exclude utterly from our minds 
everything but the relative? or must we also believe in 
something beyond the relative? 

The answer of pure logic is held to be, that by the limits 
of our intelligence we are rigorously confined within the re- 
lative; and that anything transcending the relative can be 
thought of only as a pure negation, or as a non-existence. 
" The absolute is conceived merely by a negation of con- 
ceivability," writes Sir William Hamilton. " The Absohite 
and the Infinite" says Mr Mansel, " are thus, like the In- 
conceivable and the Imperceptible, names indicating, not an 
object of thought or of consciousness at all, but the mere 
absence of the conditions under which consciousness is possi- 
ble." From each of which extracts may be deduced the con- 
clusion, that since reason cannot warrant us in affirming the 
positive existence of what is cognizable only as a negation, 
we cannot rationally affirm the positive existence of any- 
thing beyond phenomena. 

Unavoidable as this conclusion seems, it involves, I 
think, a grave error. If the premiss be granted, the infer- 
ence must doubtless be admitted; but the premiss, in the 
8 



90 THE RELATIVITY OP ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

form presented by Sir William Hamilton and Mr Mansel, is 
not strictly true. Though, in the foregoing pages, the argu- 
ments used by these writers to show that the Absolute is un- 
knowable, have been approvingly quoted ; and though these 
arguments have been enforced by others equally thorough- 
going; yet there remains to be stated a qualification, which 
saves us from that scepticism otherwise necessitated. It is 
not to be denied that so long as we confine ourselves to the 
purely logical aspect of the question, the propositions quoted 
above must be accepted in their entirety ; but when we con- 
template its more general, or psychological, aspect, we find 
that these propositions are imperfect statements of the 
truth : omitting, or rather excluding, as they do, an all-im- 
portant fact. To speak specifically: — Besides that definite 
consciousness of which Logic formulates the laws, there is 
also an indefinite consciousness which cannot be formulated. 
Besides complete thoughts, and besides the thoughts which 
though incomplete admit of completion, there are thoughts 
which it is impossible to complete; and yet which are still 
real, in the sense that they are normal affections of the 
intellect. 

Observe in the first place, that every one of the argu- 
ments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demon- 
strated, distinctly postulates the positive existence of some- 
thing beyond the relative. To say that we cannot know the 
Absolute, is, by implication, to aifirm that there is an Abso- 
lute. In the very denial of our power to learn what the Ab- 
solute is, there lies hidden the assumption that it is ; and the 
making of this assumption proves that the Absolute has been 
present to the mind, not as a nothing, but as a something. 
Similarly with every step in the reasoning by which this doc- 
trine is upheld. The Noumenon, everywhere named as the 
antithesis of the Phenomenon, is throughout necessarily 
thought of as an actuality. It is rigorously impossible to 
conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of Appearances 
only, without at the same time conceiving a Reality of which 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 91 

they are appearances ; for appearance without reality is un- 
thinkable. Strike out froni the argument the terms Un- 
conditioned, Infinite, Absolute, with their equivalents, and 
in place of them write, " negation of conceivability," or 
possible," and you find that the argument becomes non- 
sense. Truly to realize in thought any one of the proposi- 
tions of which the argument consists, the Unconditioned 
must be represented as positive and not negative. How then 
can it be a legitimate conclusion from the argument, that 
our consciousness of it is negative ? An argument, the very 
construction of which assigns to a certain term a certain 
meaning, but which ends in showing that this term has no 
such meaning, is simply an elaborate suicide. Clearly, then, 
the very demonstration that a definite consciousness of the 
Absolute is impossible to us, unavoidably presupposes an in- 
definite consciousness of it. 

Perhaps the best way of showing that by the necessary 
conditions of thought, we are obliged to form a positive 
though vague consciousness of this which transcends distinct 
consciousness, is to analyze our conception of the antithesis 
between Relative and Absolute. It is a doctrine called in 
question by none, that such antinomies of thought as Whole 
and Part, Equal and Unequal, Singular and Plural, are 
necessarily conceived as correlatives: the conception of a 
part is impossible without the conception of a whole ; there 
can be no idea of equality without one of inequality. And it 
is admitted that in the same manner, the Relative is itself 
conceivable as such, only by opposition to the Irrelative or 
Absolute. Sir William Hamilton however, in his 

trenchant (and in most parts unanswerable) criticism on 
Cousin, contends, in conformity with his position above 
stated, that one of these correlatives is nothing whatever be- 
yond the negation of the other. "Correlatives" he says 
" certainly suggest each other, but correlatives may, or may 
not, be equally real and positive. In thought contradictories 
necessarily imply each other, for the knowledge of contra- 



92 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

dictories is one. But the reality of one contradictory, so 
far from guaranteeing the reality of the other, is nothing 
else than its negation. Thus every positive notion (the con- 
cept of a thing by what it is) suggests a negative notion 
(the concept of a thing by what it is not) ; and the highest 
positive notion, the notion of the conceivable, is not with- 
out its corresponding negative in the notion of the incon- 
ceivable. But though these mutually suggest each other, 
the positive alone is real; the negative is only an abstrac- 
tion of the other, and in the highest generality, even an ab- 
straction of thought itself.' 7 Now the assertion that 
of such contradictories " the negative is only an abstrac- 
tion of the other " — " is nothing else than its negation," — 
is not true. In such correlatives as Equal and Unequal, it 
is obvious enough that the negative concept contains some- 
thing besides the negation of the positive one; for the 
things of which equality is denied are not abolished from 
consciousness by the denial. And the fact overlooked by 
Sir William Hamilton, is, that the like holds even with 
those correlatives of which the negative is inconceivable, in 
the strict sense of the word. Take for example the Limited 
and the Unlimited. Our notion of the Limited is composed, 
firstly of a consciousness of some kind of being, and second- 
ly of a consciousness of the limits under which it is known. 
In the antithetical notion of the Unlimited, the conscious- 
ness of limits is abolished ; but not the consciousness of some 
kind of being. It is quite true that in the absence of con- 
ceived limits, this consciousness ceases to be a concept prop- 
erly so called ; but it is none the less true that it remains as a 
mode of consciousness. If, in such cases, the negative contra- 
dictory were, as alleged, " nothing else " than the negation 
of the other, and therefore a mere nonentity, then it would 
clearly follow that negative contradictories could be used in- 
terchangeably: the Unlimited might be thought of as anti- 
thetical to the Divisible ; and the Indivisible as antithetical 
to the Limited. While the fact that they cannot be so used, 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 93 

proves that in consciousness the Unlimited and the Indi- 
visible are qualitatively distinct, and therefore positive or 
real; since distinction cannot exist between nothings. The 
error, (very naturally fallen into by philosophers intent on 
demonstrating the limits and conditions of consciousness,) 
consists in assuming that consciousness contains nothing out 
limits and conditions ; to the entire neglect of that which is 
limited and conditioned. It is forgotten that there is some- 
thing which alike forms the raw material of definite 
thought and remains after the definiteness which thinking 
gave to it has been destroyed. How all this applies by 

change of terms to the last and highest of these antinomies 
— that between the Relative and the E"on-relative. We 
are conscious of the Relative as existence under conditions 
and limits; it is impossible that these conditions and limits 
can be thought of apart from something to which they give 
the form; the abstraction of these conditions and limits, is, 
by the hypothesis, the abstraction of them only • conse- 
quently there must be a residuary consciousness of some- 
thing which filled up their outlines; and this indefinite 
something constitutes our consciousness of the ISTon-relative 
or Absolute. Impossible though it is to give to this con- 
sciousness any qualitative or quantitative expresion what- 
ever, it is not the less certain that it remains with us as a posi- 
tive and indestructible element of thought. 

Still more manifest will this truth become when it is ob- 
served that our conception of the Relative itself disappears, 
if our conception of the Absolute is a pure negation. It is 
admitted, or rather it is contended, by the writers I have 
quoted above, that contradictories can be known only in re- 
lation to each other — that Equality, for instance, is un- 
thinkable apart from its correlative Inequality; and that 
thus the Relative can itself be conceived only by opposition 
to the Non-relative. It is also admitted, or rather contended, 
that the consciousness of a relation implies a consciousness 
of both the related members. If we are required to con- 



94: THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

ceive the relation between the Relative and Non-relative 
without being conscious of both, " we are in fact " (to quote 
the words of Mr Mansel differently applied) " required to 
compare that of which we are conscious with that of which 
we are not conscious; the comparison itself being an act of 
consciousness, and only possible through the consciousness 
of both its objects." What then becomes of the assertion 
that " the Absolute is conceived merely by a negation of 
conceivability," or as " the mere absence of the conditions 
under which consciousness is possible? " If the Non-rela- 
tive or Absolute, is present in thought only as a mere nega- 
tion, then the relation between it and the Relative becomes 
unthinkable, because one of the terms of the relation is ab- 
sent from consciousness. And if this relation is unthink- 
able, then is the Relative itself unthinkable, for want of its 
antithesis; whence results the disappearance of all thought 
whatever. 

Let me here point out that both Sir Wm Hamilton and 
Mr Mansel, do, in other places, distinctly imply that our 
consciousness of the Absolute, indefinite though it is, is 
positive and not negative. The very passage already quoted 
from Sir Wm Hamilton, in which he asserts that " the ab- 
solute is conceived merely by a negation of conceivability, " 
itself ends with the remark that, "by a wonderful revela- 
tion we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inability to 
conceive aught above the relative and finite, inspired with a 
belief in the existence of something unconditioned beyond 
the sphere of all comprehensible reality." The last of 
these assertions practically admits that which the other 
denies. By the laws of thought as Sir Wm Hamilton has 
interpreted them, he finds himself forced to the conclusion 
that our consciousness of the Absolute is a pure negation. 
He nevertheless finds that there does exist in consciousness 
an irresistible conviction of the real " existence of some- 
thing unconditioned." And he gets over the inconsistency 
by speaking of this conviction as " a wonderful revelation " 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 95 

— " a belief " with which we are " inspired: " thus appar- 
ently hinting that it is supernaturally at variance with the 
laws of thought. Mr Hansel is betrayed into a like incon- 
sistency. When he says that " we are compelled, by the 
constitution of our minds, to believe in the existence of an 
Absolute and Infinite Being, — a belief which appears forced 
upon us, as the complement of our consciousness of the rela- 
tive and the finite; " he clearly says by implication that 
this consciousness is positive, and not negative. He tacitly 
admits that we are obliged to regard the Absolute as some- 
thing more than a negation — that our consciousness of it is 
not " the mere absence of the conditions under which con- 
sciousness is possible." 

The supreme importance of this question must be my 
apology for taxing the reader's attention a little further, in 
the hope of clearing up the remaining difficulties. The ne- 
cessarily positive character of our consciousness of the 
Unconditioned, which, as we have seen, follows from an ulti- 
mate law of thought, will be better understood on contem- 
plating the process of thought. 

One of the arguments used to prove the relativity of 
our knowledge, is, that we cannot conceive Space or Time as 
either limited or unlimited. It is pointed out that when we 
imagine a limit, there simultaneously arises the conscious-' 
ness of a space or time existing beyond the limit. This re- 
moter space or time, though not contemplated as definite, is 
yet contemplated as real. Though we do not form of it a 
conception proper, since we do not bring it within bounds, 
there is yet in our minds the unshaped material of a concep- 
tion. Similarly with our consciousness of Cause. We are 
no more able to form a circumscribed idea of Cause, than of 
Space or Time; and we are consequently obliged to think 
of the Cause which transcends the limits of our thought as 
positive though indefinite Just in the same manner that 

on conceiving any bounded space, there arises a nascent, 
consciousness of space outside the hounds; so, when we 



96 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

think of any definite cause, there arises a nascent conscious- 
ness of a cause behind it: and in the one case as in the 
other, this nascent consciousness is in substance like that 
which suggests it, though without form. The momentum 
of thought inevitably carries us beyond conditioned exist- 
ence to unconditioned existence ; and this ever persists in us 
as the body of a thought to which we can give no shape. 

Hence our firm belief in objective reality — a belief 
which metaphysical criticisms cannot for a moment shake. 
When we are taught that a piece of matter, regarded by us 
as existing externally, cannot be really known, but that we 
can know only certain impressions produced on us, we are 
yet, by the relativity of our thought, compelled to think of 
these in relation to a positive cause — the notion of a real ex- 
istence which generated these impressions becomes nascent. 
If it be proved to us that every notion of a real existence 
which we can frame, is utterly inconsistent with itself — that 
matter, however conceived by us, cannot be matter as it 
actually is, our conception, though transfigured, is not de- 
stroyed: there remains the sense of reality, dissociated as 
far as possible from those special forms under which it was 
before represented in thought. Though Philosophy con- 
demns successively each attempted conception of the Abso- 
lute — though it proves to us that the Absolute is not this, 
nor that, nor that — though in obedience to it we negative, 
one after another, each idea as it arises; yet, as we cannot 
expel the entire contents of consciousness, there ever re- 
mains behind an element which passes into new shapes. The 
continual negation of each particular form and limit, sim- 
ply results in the more or less complete abstraction of all 
forms and limits ; and so ends in an indefinite consciousness 
of the unformed and unlimited. 

And here we come face to face with the ultimate diffi- 
culty — How can there possibly be constituted a conscious- 
ness of the unformed and unlimited, when, by its very na- 
ture, consciousness is possible only under forms and limits? 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 97 

If every consciousness of existence is a consciousness of ex- 
istence as conditioned, then how, after the negation of con- 
ditions, can there be any residuum?. Though not directly 
withdrawn by the withdrawal of its conditions, must not the 
raw material of consciousness be withdrawn by implication?. 
Must it not vanish when the conditions of its existence van- 
ish? That there must be a solution of this difficulty 
is manifest; since even those who would put it, do, as al- 
ready shown, admit that we have some such consciousness; 
and the solution appears to be that above shadowed forth. 
Such consciousness is not, and cannot be, constituted by any 
single mental act; but is the product of many mental acts. 
In each concept there is an element which persists. It is 
alike impossible for this element to be absent from con- 
sciousness, and for it to be present in consciousness alone: 
either alternative involves unconsciousness — the one from 
the want of the substance; the other from the want of the 
form. But the persistence of this element under successive 
conditions, necessitates a sense of it as distinguished from 
the conditions, and independent of them. The sense of a 
something that is conditioned in every thought, cannot be 
got rid of, because the something cannot be got rid of. 
How then must the sense of this something be constituted? 
Evidently by combining successive concepts deprived of 
their limits and conditions. We form this indefinite 
thought, as we form many of our definite thoughts, by 
the coalescence of a series of thoughts. Let me illustrate 
this. A large complex object, having attributes too 
numerous to be represented at once, is yet tolerably well 
conceived by the union of several representations, each 
standing for part of its attributes. On thinking of a 
piano, there first rises in imagination its visual appearance, 
to which are instantly added (though by separate mental 
acts) the ideas of its remote side and of its solid substance. 
A complete conception, however, involves the strings, the 
hammers, the dampers, the pedals; and while successively 



98 THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 

adding these to the conception, the attributes first thought 
of lapse more or less completely out of consciousness. 
Nevertheless, the whole group constitutes a representation 
of the piano. Now as in this case we form a definite concept 
of a special existence, by imposing limits and conditions in 
successive acts ; so, in the converse case, by taking away the 
limits and conditions in successive acts, we form an indefi- 
nite notion of general existence. By fusing a series of states 
of consciousness, in each of which, as it arises, the limita- 
tions and conditions are abolished, there is produced a con- 
sciousness of something unconditioned. To speak more 
rigorously: — this consciousness is not the abstract of any 
one group of thoughts, ideas, or conceptions; but it is the 
abstract of all thoughts, ideas, or conceptions. That which 
is common to them all, and cannot be got rid of, is what we 
predicate by the word existence. Dissociated as this be- 
comes from each of its modes by the perpetual change of 
those modes, it remains as an indefinite consciousness of 
something constant under all modes — of being apart from 
its appearances. The distinction we feel between special 
and general existence, is the distinction between that which 
is changeable in us, and that which is unchangeable. The 
contrast between the Absolute and the Relative in our 
minds, is really the contrast between that mental element 
which exists absolutely, and those which exist relatively. 

By its very nature, therefore, this ultimate mental ele- 
ment is at once necessarily indefinite and necessarily inde- 
structible. Our consciousness of the unconditioned being 
literally the unconditioned consciousness, or raw material 
of thought to which in thinking we give definite forms, it 
folloAvs that an ever-present sense of real existence is the 
very basis of our intelligence. As we can in successive men- 
tal acts get rid of all particular conditions and replace them 
by others, but cannot get rid of that undifferentiated sub- 
stance of consciousness which is conditioned anew in every 
thought; there ever remains with us a sense of that which 



THE RELATIVITY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE. 99 

exists persistently and independently of conditions. At the 
same time that by the laws of thought we are rigorously 
prevented from forming a conception of absolute existence ; 
we are by the laws of thought equally prevented from rid- 
ding ourselves of the consciousness of absolute existence: 
this consciousness being, as we here see, the obverse of our 
self-consciousness. And since the only possible measure of 
relative validity among our beliefs, is the degree of their 
persistence in opposition to the efforts made to change them, 
it follows that this which persists at all times, under all cir- 
cumstances, and cannot cease until consciousness ceases, has 
the highest validity of any. 

To sum up this somewhat too elaborate argument : — We 
have seen how in the very assertion that all our knowledge, 
properly so called, is Relative, there is involved the asser- 
tion that there exists a Non-relative. We have seen how, in 
each step of the argument by which this doctrine is estab- 
lished, the same assumption is made. We have seen how, 
from the very necessity of thinking in relations, it follows 
that the Relative is itself inconceivable, except as related to 
a real Non-relative. We have seen that unless a real Non- 
relative or Absolute be postulated, the Relative itself be- 
comes absolute ; and so brings the argument to a contradic- 
tion. And on contemplating the process of thought, we 
have equally seen how impossible it is to get rid of the con- 
sciousness of an actuality lying behind appearances; and 
how, from this impossibility, results our indestructible be- 
lief in that actuality. 



CHAPTEE V. 

THE RECONCILIATION. 

§ 27. Thus do all lines of argument converge to the 
same conclusion. The inference reached a priori, in the 
last chapter, confirms the inferences which, in the two pre- 
ceding chapters, were reached a posteriori. Those imbecili- 
ties of the understanding that disclose themselves when we 
try to answer the highest questions of objective science, 
subjective science proves to be necessitated by the laws of 
that understanding. We not only learn by the frustration 
of all our efforts, that the reality underlying appearances is 
totally and for ever inconceivable by us; but we also learn 
why, from the very nature of our intelligence, it must be so. 
Finally we discover that this conclusion, which, in its un- 
qualified form, seems opposed to the instinctive convictions 
of mankind, falls into harmony with them when the miss- 
ing qualification is supplied. Though the Absolute cannot 
in any manner or degree be known, in the strict sense of 
knowing, yet we find that its positive existence is a neces- 
sary datum of consciousness; that so long as consciousness 
continues, we cannot for an instant rid it of this datum ; and 
that thus the belief which this datum constitutes, has a 
higher warrant than any other whatever. 

Here then is that basis of agreement we set out to seek. 
This conclusion which objective science illustrates, and sub- 
jective science shows to be unavoidable, — this conclusion 
which, while it in the main expresses the doctrine of the 

100 



THE RECONCILIATION. 101 

English school of philosophy, recognizes also a soul of truth 
in the doctrine of the antagonistic German school — this con- 
clusion which brings the results of speculation into harmony 
with those of common sense; is also the conclusion which 
reconciles Religion with Science. Common Sense asserts 
the existence of a reality; Objective Science proves that 
this reality cannot be what we think it; Subjective Science 
shows why we cannot think of it as it is, and yet are com- 
pelled to think of it as existing; and in this assertion of a 
Reality utterly inscrutable in nature, Religion finds an asser- 
tion essentially coinciding with her own. We are obliged to 
regard every phenomenon as a manifestation of some Power 
by which we are acted upon; though Omnipresence is un- 
thinkable, yet, as experience discloses no bounds to the diffu- 
sion of phenomena, we are unable to think of limits to the 
presence of this Power; while the criticisms of Science 
teach us that this Power is Incomprehensible. And this 
consciousness of an Incomprehensible Power, called Omni- 
present from inability to assign its limits, is just that con- 
sciousness on which Religion dwells. 

To understand fully how real is the reconciliation thus 
reached, it will be needful to look at the respective attitudes 
that Religion and Science have all along maintained towards 
this conclusion. We must observe how, all along, the im- 
perfections of each have been undergoing correction by the 
other; and how the final out-come of their mutual criti- 
cisms, can be nothing else than an entire agreement on this 
deepest and widest of all truths. 

§ 28. In Religion let us recognize the high merit that 
from the beginning it has dimly discerned the ultimate ver- 
ity, and has never ceased to insist upon it. In its earliest 
and crudest forms it manifested, however vaguely and in- 
consistently, an intuition forming the germ of this highest 
belief in which all philosophies finally unite. The con- 
sciousness of a mystery is traceable in the rudest fetishism. 



102 THE RECONCILIATION. 

Each higher religious creed, rejecting those definite and sim- 
ple interpretations of Mature previously given, has become 
more religious by doing this. As the quite concrete and con- 
ceivable agencies alleged as the causes of things, have been 
replaced by agencies less concrete and conceivable, the ele- 
ment of mystery has of necessity become more predominant. 
Through all its successive phases the disappearance of those 
positive dogmas by which the mystery was made unmysteri- 
ous, has formed the essential change delineated in religious 
history. And so Religion has ever been approximating 
towards that complete recognition of this mystery which is 
its goal. 

For its essentially valid belief, Religion has constantly 
done battle. Gross as were the disguises under which it first 
espoused this belief, and cherishing this belief, though it 
still is, under disfiguring vestments, it has never ceased to 
maintain and defend it. It has everywhere established and 
propagated one or other modification of the doctrine that all 
things are manifestations of a Power that transcends our 
knowledge. Though from age to age, Science has continu- 
ally defeated it wherever they have come in collision, and 
has obliged it to relinquish one or more of its positions; it 
has still held the remaining ones with undimnished tenacity. 
!No exposure of the logical inconsistency of its conclusions 
— no proof that each of its particular dogmas was absurd, 
has been able to weaken its allegiance to that ultimate verity 
for which it stands. After criticism has abolished all its 
arguments and reduced it to silence, there has still remained 
with it the indestructible consciousness of a truth which, 
however faulty the mode in which it had been expressed, 
was yet a truth beyond cavil. To this conviction its adher- 
ence has been substantially sincere. And for the guardian-, 
ship and diffusion of it, Humanity has ever been, and must 
ever be, its debtor. 

But while from the beginning, Religion has had the all- 
essential office of preventing men from being wholly ab- 



THE RECONCILIATION. 103 

sorbed in the relative or immediate, and of awakening them 
to a consciousness of something beyond it, this office has 
been but very imperfectly discharged. Religion has ever 
been more or less irreligious; and it continues to be par- 
tially irreligious even now. In the first place, as im- 
plied above, it has all along professed to have some knowl- 
edge of that which transcends knowledge; and has so con- 
tradicted its own teachings. AVhile with one breath it has 
asserted that the Cause of all things passes understanding, it 
has, with the next breath, asserted that the Cause of all 
things possesses such or such attributes — can be in so far 
understood. In the second place, while in great part 
sincere in its fealty to the great truth it has had to uphold, 
it has often been insincere, and consequently irreligious, in 
maintaining the untenable doctrines bv which it has ob- 
scured this great truth. Each assertion respecting the na- 
ture, acts, or motives of that Power which the Universe 
manifests to us, has been repeatedly called in question, and 
proved to be inconsistent with itself, or with accompanying 
assertions. Yet each of them has been age after age insisted 
on, in spite of a secret consciousness that it would not bear 
examination. Just as though unaware that its central posi- 
tion was impregnable, Religion has obstinately held every 
outpost long after it was obviously indefensible. And 
this naturally introduces us to the third and most serious 
form of irreligion which Religion has displayed; namely, 
an imperfect belief in that which it especially professes 
to believe. How truly its central position is impregnable, 
Religion has never adequately realized. In the devoutest 
faith as we habitually see it, there lies hidden an innermost 
core of scepticism; and it is this scepticism which causes 
that dread of inquiry displayed by Religion when face to 
face with Science. Obliged to abandon one by one the su- 
perstitions it once tenaciously held, and daily finding its 
cherished beliefs more and more shaken, Religion shows a 
secret fear that all things may some day be explained; and 



104 THE RECONCILIATION. 

thus itself betrays a lurking doubt whether that Incompre- 
hensible Cause of which it is conscious, is really incompre- 
hensible. 

Of Religion then, we must always remember, that amid 
its many errors and corruptions it has asserted and diffused a 
supreme verity. From the first, the recognition of this su- 
preme verity, in however imperfect a manner, has been its 
vital element; and its various defects, once extreme but 
gradually diminishing, have been so many failures to recog- 
nize in full that which it recognized in part. The truly re- 
ligious element of Religion has always been good; that 
Avhich has proved untenable in doctrine and vicious in prac- 
tice, has been its irreligious element; and from this it has 
been ever undergoing purification. 

§ 29. And now observe that all along, the agent which 
has effected the purification has been Science. We habitu- 
ally overlook the fact that this has been one of its functions. 
Religion ignores its immense debt to Science; and Science 
is scarcely at all conscious how much Religion owes it. 
Yet it is demonstrable that every step by which Religion 
has progressed from its first low conception to the compara- 
tively high one it has now reached, Science has helped it, or 
rather forced it, to take ; and that even now, Science is urg- 
ing further steps in the same direction. 

Using the word Science in its true sense, as comprehend- 
ing all positive and definite knowledge of the order existing 
among surrounding phenomena, it becomes manifest that 
from the outset, the discovery of an established order has 
modified that conception of disorder, or undetermined order, 
which underlies every superstition. As fast as experience 
proves that certain familiar changes always happen in the 
same sequence, there begins to fade from the mind the con- 
ception of a special personality to whose variable will they 
were before ascribed. And when, step by step, accumu- 
lating observations do the like with the less familiar changes, 



THE RECONCILIATION. 105 

a similar modification of belief takes place with respect 
to them. 

While this process seems to those who effect, and those 
who undergo it, an anti-religious one, it is really the reverse. 
Instead of the specific comprehensible agency before as- 
signed, there is substituted a less specific and less compre- 
hensible agency ; and though this, standing in opposition to 
the previous one, cannot at first call forth the same feeling, 
yet, as being less comprehensible, it must eventually call 
forth this feeling more fully. Take an instance. Of 

old the Sun was regarded as the chariot of a god, drawn by 
horses. How far the idea thus grossly expressed, was 
idealized, we need not inquire. It suffices to remark that 
this accounting for the apparent motion of the Sun by an 
agency like certain visible terrestrial agencies, reduced a 
daily wonder to the level of the commonest intellect. 
"When, many centuries after, Kepler discovered that the 
planets moved round the Sun in ellipses and described 
equal areas in equal times, he concluded that in each planet 
there must exist a spirit to guide its movements. Here we 
see that with the progress of Science, there had disap- 
peared the idea of a gross mechanical traction, such as was 
first assigned in the case of the Sun ; but that while for this 
there was substituted an indefinite and less-easily conceiva- 
ble force, it was still thought needful to assume a special per- 
sonal agent as the cause of the regular irregularity of mo- 
tion. When, finally, it was proved that these planetary 
revolutions with all their variations and disturbances, con- 
formed to one universal law — when the presiding spirits 
which Kepler conceived were set aside, and the force of 
gravitation put in their place; the change was really the 
abolition of an imaginable agency, and the substitution of 
an unimaginable one. For though the law <>i gravitation 
is within our mental grasp, it is impossible to realize in 
thought the force of gravitation. Newton himself confes 
the force of gravitation to be incomprehensible without the 



106 THE RECONCILIATION. 

intermediation of an ether; and, as we have already seen, 
(§ 18,) the assumption of an ether does not in the least 
help us. Thus it is with Science in general. Its 

progress in grouping particular relations of phenomena 
under laws, and these special laws under laws more and 
more general, is of necessity a progress to causes that are 
more and more abstract. And causes more and more ab- 
stract, are of necessity causes less and less conceivable; 
since the formation of an abstract conception involves the 
dropping of certain concrete elements of thought. Hence 
the most abstract conception, to which Science is ever slowly 
approaching, is one that merges into the inconceivable or 
unthinkable, by the dropping of all concrete elements of 
thought. And so is justified the assertion, that the beliefs 
which Science has forced upon Religion, have been intrin- 
sically more religious than those which they supplanted. 

Science however, like Religion, has but very incomplete- 
ly fulfilled its office. As Religion has fallen short of its 
function in so far as it has been irreligious ; so has Science 
fallen short of its function in so far as it has been unscien- 
tific. Let us note the several parallelisms. In its ear- 
lier stages, Science, while it began to teach the constant rela- 
tions of phenomena, and so discredited the belief in separate 
personalities as the causes of them, itself substituted the be- 
lief in causal agencies which, if not personal, were yet con- 
crete. When certain facts were said to show " Nature's 
abhorrence of a vacuum," when the properties of gold were 
explained as due to some entity called " aureity," and when 
the phenomena of life were attributed to " a vital princi- 
ple; " there was set up a mode of interpreting the facts, 
which, while antagonistic to the religious mode, because 
assigning other agencies, was also unscientific, because it 
professed to know that about which nothing was known. 
Having abandoned these metaphysical agencies — having 
seen that they were not independent existences, but merely 
special combinations of general causes, Science has more re- 



THE RECONCILIATION. _107 

cently ascribed extensive groups of phenomena to electric- 
ity, chemical affinity, and other like general powers. But 
in speaking of these as ultimate and independent entities, 
Science has preserved substantially the same attitude as be- 
fore. Accounting thus for all phenomena, those of Life 
and Thought included, it has not only maintained its seem- 
ing antagonism to Religion, by alleging agencies of a radi- 
cally unlike kind; but, in so far as it has tacitly. assumed a 
knowledge of these agencies, it has continued unscientific. 
At the present time, however, the most advanced men of 
science are abandoning these later conceptions, as their pre- 
decessors abandoned the earlier ones. Magnetism, heat, 
light &c, which were awhile since spoken of as so many 
distinct imponderables, physicists are now beginning to re- 
gard as different modes of manifestation of some one uni- 
versal force; and in so doing are ceasing to think of this 
force as comprehensible. In each phase of its prog- 

ress, Science has thus stopped short with superficial solu- 
tions — has unscientifically neglected to ask what was the 
nature of the agents it so familiarly invoked. Though in 
each succeeding phase it has gone a little deeper, and 
merged its supposed agents in more general and abstract 
ones, it has still, as before, rested content with these as 
if they were ascertained realities. And this, which has 
all along been the unscientific characteristic of Science, has 
all along been a part cause of its conflict with Religion. 

§ 30. We see then that from the first, the faults of both 
Religion and Science have been the faults of imperfect de- 
velopment. Originally a mere rudiment, each has been 
growing into a more complete form ; the vice of each has in 
all times been its incompleteness; the disagreements be- 
tween them have throughout been nothing more than the 
consequences of their incompleteness; and as they reach 
their final forms, they conic into entire harmony. 

The progress of intelligence has throughout been dual. 



108 THE RECONCILIATION. 

Though it has not seemed so to those who made it, every step 
in advance has been a step towards both the natural and the 
supernatural. The better interpretation of each phenome- 
non has been, on the one hand, the rejection of a cause that 
was relatively conceivable in its nature but unknown in the 
order of its actions, and, on the other hand, the adoption of 
a cause that was known in the order of its actions but rela- 
tively inconceivable in its nature. The first advance out of 
universal fetishism, manifestly involved the conception of 
agencies less assimilable to the familiar agencies of men and 
animals, and therefore less understood; while, at the same 
time, such newly-conceived agencies in so far as they were 
distinguished by their uniform effects, were better under- 
stood than those they replaced. All subsequent advances 
display the same double result. Every deeper and more 
general power arrived at as a cause of phenomena, has been 
at once less comprehensible than the special ones it super- 
seded, in the sense of being less definitely representable in 
thought; while it has been more comprehensible in the 
sense that its actions have been more completely predicable. 
The progress has thus been as much towards the establish- 
ment of a positively unknown as towards the establishment 
of a positively known. Though as knowledge approaches its 
culmination, every unaccountable and seemingly supernatu- 
ral fact, is brought into the category of facts that are ac- 
countable or natural; yet, at the same time, all accountable 
or natural facts are proved to be in their ultimate genesis un- 
accountable and supernatural. And so there arise two anti- 
thetical states of mind, answering to the opposite sides of 
that existence about which we think. While our conscious- 
ness of Nature under the one aspect constitutes Science, 
our consciousness of it under the other aspect constitutes 
Religion. 

Otherwise contemplating the facts, we may say that Re- 
ligion and Science have been undergoing a slow differentia- 
tion ; and that their ceaseless conflicts have been due to the 



THE RECONCILIATION. 109 

imperfect separation of their spheres and functions. Reli- 
gion has, from the first, struggled to unite more or less sci- 
ence with its nescience; Science has, from the first, kept 
hold of more or less nescience as though it were a part of 
science. Each has been obliged gradually to relinquish 
that territory which it wrongly claimed, while it has gained 
from the other that to which it had a right ; and the antago- 
nism between them has been an inevitable accompaniment 
of this process. A more specific statement will make this 
clear. Religion, though at the outset it asserted a 

mystery, also made numerous definite assertions respecting 
this mystery — professed to know its nature in the minutest 
detail, and in so far as it claimed positive knowledge, it tres- 
passed upon the province of Science. From the times of 
early mythologies, when such intimate acquaintance with 
the mystery was alleged, down to our own days, when but a 
few abstract and vague propositions are maintained, Re- 
ligion has been compelled by Science to give up one after 
another of its dogmas — of those assumed cognitions which 
it could not substantiate. In the mean time, Science substi- 
tuted for the personalities to which Religion ascribed phe- 
nomena, certain metaphysical entities; and in doing this 
it trespassed on the province of Religion; since it classed 
among the things which it comprehended, certain forms of 
the incomprehensible. Partly by the criticisms of Re- 
ligion, which has occasionally called in question its assump- 
tions, and partly as a consequence of spontaneous growth, 
Science has been obliged to abandon these attempts to in- 
clude within the boundaries of knowledge that which cannot 
be known ; and has so yielded up to Religion that which of 
right belonged to it. So long as this process of dif- 

ferentiation is incomplete, more or less of antagonism must 
continue. Gradually as the limits of possible cognition are 
established, the causes of conflict will diminish. And a per- 
manent peace will be reached when Science becomes fully 
convinced that its explanations are proximate and relative; 



HO THE RECONCILIATION. 

while Religion becomes fully convinced that the mystery it 
contemplates is ultimate and absolute. 

Religion and Science are therefore necessary correla- 
tives. As already hinted, they stand respectively for those 
two antithetical modes of consciousness which cannot exist 
asunder. A known cannot be thought of apart from an un- 
known; nor can an unknown be thought of apart from a 
known. And by consequence neither can become more dis- 
tinct without giving greater distinctness to the other. To 
carry further a metaphor before used, — they are the positive 
and negative poles of thought; of which neither can gain 
in intensity without increasing the intensity of the other. 

§ 31. Thus the consciousness of an Inscrutable Power 
manifested to us through all phenomena, has been growing 
ever clearer; and must eventually be freed from its imper- 
fections. The certainty that on the one hand such a Power 
exists, while on the other hand its nature transcends intui- 
tion and is beyond imagination, is the certainty towards 
which intelligence has from the first been progressing. To 
this conclusion Science inevitably arrives as it reaches its 
confines; while to this conclusion Religion is irresistibly 
driven by criticism. And satisfying as it does the demands 
of the most rigorous logic at the same time that it gives the 
religious sentiment the widest possible sphere of action, it 
is the conclusion we are bound to accept without reserve or 
qualification. 

Some do indeed allege that though the Ultimate Cause 
of things cannot really be thought of by us as having speci- 
fied attributes, it is yet incumbent upon us to assert these 
attributes. Though the forms of our consciousness are such 
that the Absolute cannot in any manner or degree be 
brought within them, we are nevertheless told that we must 
represent the Absolute to ourselves under these forms. As 
writes Mr Mansel, in the work from which I have already 
quoted largely — " It is our duty, then, to think of God as 



THE RECONCILIATION. HI 

personal; and it is our duty to believe that He is in- 
finite." 

That this is not the conclusion here adopted, needs hard- 
ly be said. If there be any meaning in the foregoing argu- 
ments, duty requires us neither to affirm nor deny personal- 
ity. Our duty is to submit ourselves with all humility to the 
established limits of our intelligence ; and not perversely to 
rebel against them. Let those who can, believe that there is 
eternal war set between our intellectual faculties and our 
moral obligations. I for one, admit no such radical vice in 
the constitution of things. 

This which to most Avill seem an essentially irreligious 
position, is an essentially religious one — nay is the religious 
one, to which, as already shown, all others are but approxi- 
mations. In the estimate it implies of the Ultimate Cause, it 
does not fall short of the alternative position, but exceeds it. 
Those who espouse this alternative position, make the erro- 
neous assumption that the choice is between personality and 
something lower than personality; whereas the choice is 
rather between personality and something higher. Is it not 
just possible that there is a mode of being as much tran- 
scending Intelligence and Will, as these transcend mechani- 
cal motion? It is true that we are totally unable to conceive 
any such higher mode of being. But this is not a reason for 
questioning its existence ; it is rather the reverse. Have we 
not seen how utterly incompetent our minds are to form 
even an approach to a conception of that which underlies all 
phenomena? Is it not proved that this incompetency is the 
incompetency of the Conditioned to grasp the Uncondi- 
tioned? Does it not follow that the Ultimate Cause cannot 
in any respect be conceived by us because it is in every re- 
spect greater than can be conceived? And may we not 
therefore rightly refrain from assigning to it any attributes 
whatever, on the ground that such attributes, derived as they 
must be from our own natures, arc not elevations but. degra- 
dations? Indeed it seems somewhal strange thai men should 



112 THE RECONCILIATION. 

suppose the highest worship to lie in assimilating the object 
of their worship to themselves. Not in asserting a tran- 
scendant difference, but in asserting a certain likeness, con- 
sists the element of their creed which they think essential. 
It is true that from the time when the rudest savages imag- 
ined the causes of all things to be creatures of flesh and blood 
like themselves, down to our own time, the degree of as- 
sumed likeness has been diminishing. But though a bodily 
form and substance similar to that of man, has long since 
ceased, among cultivated races, to be a literally-conceived 
attribute of the Ultimate Cause — though the grosser human 
desires have been also rejected as unfit elements of the con- 
ception — though there is some hesitation in ascribing even 
the higher human feelings, save in greatly idealized shapes ; 
yet it is still thought not only proper, but imperative, to 
ascribe the most abstract qualities of our nature. To think 
of the Creative Power as in all respects anthropomorphous, 
is now considered impious by men who yet hold themselves 
bound to think of the Creative Power as in some respects 
anthropomorphous; and who do not see that the one pro- 
ceeding is but an evanescent form of the other. And then, 
most marvellous of all, this course is persisted in even by 
those who contend that we are wholly unable to frame any 
conception whatever of the Creative Power. After it has 
been shown that every supposition respecting the genesis of 
the Universe commits us to alternative impossibilities of 
thought — after it has been shown that each attempt to con- 
ceive real existence ends in an intellectual suicide — after it 
has been shown why, by the very constitution of our minds, 
we are eternally debarred from thinking of the Absolute ; it 
is still asserted that we ought to think of the Absolute thus 
and thus. In all imaginable ways we find thrust upon us the 
truth, that we are not permitted to know — nay are not even 
permitted to conceive — that Reality which is behind the 
veil of Appearance; and yet it is said to be our duty to be- 
lieve (and in so far to conceive) that this Reality exists in a 



THE RECONCILIATION. 113 

certain denned manner. Shall we call this reverence? or 
shall we call it the reverse? 

Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the 
pious. Through the printed and spoken thoughts of relig- 
ious teachers, may almost everywhere be traced a professed 
familiarity with the ultimate mystery of things, which, to 
say the least of it, seems anything but congruous with the 
accompanying expressions of humility. And surprisingly 
enough, those tenets which most clearly display this famil- 
iarity, are those insisted upon as forming the vital elements 
of religious belief. The attitude thus assumed, can be fitly 
represented only by further developing a simile long current 
in theological controversies — the simile of the watch. If 
for a moment we made the grotesque supposition that the 
tickings and other movements of a watch constituted a kind 
of consciousness; and that a watch possessed of such a con- 
sciousness, insisted on regarding the watchmaker's actions 
as determined like its own by springs and escapements; 
we should simply complete a parallel of which religious 
teachers think much. And were we to suppose that a watch 
not only formulated the cause of its existence in these 
mechanical terms, but held that watches were bound out .of 
reverence so to formulate this cause, and even vituperated, 
as atheistic watches, any that did not venture so to formulate 
it ; we should merely illustrate the presumption of theologi- 
ans by carrying their own argument a step further. A 
few extracts will bring home to the reader the justice of this 
comparison. We are told, for example, by one of high 
repute among religious thinkers, that the Universe is " the 
manifestation and abode of a Free Mind, like our own ; em- 
bodying His personal thought in its adjustments, realizing 
His own ideal in its phenomena, just as we express our inner 
faculty and character through the natural language of an 
external life. In this view, we interpret Xature by Human- 
ity; we find the key to her aspects in such purposes and 
affections as our own consciousness enables us to conceive; 



114 THE RECONCILIATION. 

we look everywhere for physical signals of an ever-living 
Will; and decipher the universe as the autobiography of 
an Infinite Spirit, repeating itself in miniature within our 
Finite Spirit." The same writer goes still further. He 
not only thus parallels the assimilation of the watchmaker 
to the watch, — he not only thinks the created can " de- 
cipher " " the autobiography" of the Creating; but he 
asserts that the necessary limits of the one are the necessary 
limits of the other. The primary qualities of bodies, he says, 
" belong eternally to the material datum objective to God " 
and control his acts; while the secondary ones are " prod- 
ucts of pure Inventive Reason and Determining Will " — 
constitute u the realm of Divine originality." * * * 
" While on this Secondary field His Mind and ours are thus 
contrasted, they meet in resemblance again upon the Pri- 
mary: for the evolution of deductive Reason there is but 
one track possible to all intelligences ; no merum arbitrium 
can interchange the false and true, or make more than one 
geometry, one scheme of pure Physics, for all worlds; and 
the Omnipotent Architect Himself, in realizing the Kosmi- 
cal conception, in shaping the orbits out of immensity and 
determining seasons out of eternity, could but follow the 
laws of curvature, measure and proportion." That is to say, 
the Ultimate Cause is like a human mechanic, not only as 
u shaping " the " material datum objective to " Him, but 
also as being obliged to conform to the necessary properties 
of that datum." Nor is this all. There follows some ac- 
count of " the Divine psychology," to the extent of saying 
that " we learn " " the character of God — the order of affec- 
tions in Him " from " the distribution of authority in the 
hierarchy of our impulses." In other words, it is alleged 
that the Ultimate Cause has desires that are to be classed as 
higher and lower like our own.* Every one has heard 

of the king who wished he had been present at the creation 

* These extracts are from an article entitled " Nature and God," published 
in the National Review for October, 1 860. 



THE RECONCILIATION. 115 

of the world, that he might have given good advice. He 
was humble however compared with those who profess to 
understand not only the relation of the Creating to the 
created, but also how the Creating is constituted. And yet 
this transcendent audacity, which claims to penetrate the 
secrets of the Power manifested to us through all existence 
— nay even to stand behind that Power and note the condi- 
tions to its action — this it is which passes current as piety! 
May we not without hesitation affirm that a sincere recogni- 
tion of the truth that our own and all other existence is a 
mystery absolutely and for ever beyond our comprehension, 
contains more of true religion than all the dogmatic theology 
ever written? 

Meanwhile let us recognize whatever of permanent good 
there is in these persistent attempts to frame conceptions of 
that which cannot be conceived. From the beginning it has 
been only through the successive failures of such concep- 
tions to satisfy the mind, that higher and higher ones have 
been gradually reached ; and doubtless, the conceptions now 
current are indispensable as transitional modes of thought. 
Even more than this may be willingly conceded. It is possi- 
ble, nay probable, that under their most abstract forms, ideas 
of this order will always continue to occupy the background 
of our consciousness. Very likely there will ever remain a 
need to give shape to that indefinite sense of an Ultimate 
Existence, which forms the basis of our intelligence. We 
shall always be under the necessity of contemplating it as 
some mode of being; that is — of representing it to ourselves 
in some form of thought, however vague. And we shall not 
err in doing this so long as we treat every notion we thus 
frame as merely a symbol, utterly without resemblance to 
that for which it stands. Perhaps the constant formation of 
such symbols and constant rejection of them as inadequate, 
may be hereafter, as it has hitherto been, a means of disci- 
pline. Perpetually to construct ideas requiring the utmost 
stretch of our faculties, and perpetually to find that such 



lie THE RECONCILIATION. 

ideas must be abandoned as futile imaginations, may realize 
to us more fully than any other course, the greatness of 
that which we strive to grasp. Such efforts and fail- 
ures may serve to maintain in our minds a due 
sense of the incommensurable difference between the Con- 
ditioned and the Unconditioned. By continually seeking 
to know and being continually thrown back with a deepened 
conviction of the impossibility of knowing, we may keep 
alive the consciousness that it is alike our highest wisdom 
and our highest duty to regard that through which all things 
exist as The Unknowable. 

§ 32. An immense majority will refuse with more or 
less of indignation, a belief seeming to them so shadowy and 
indefinite. Having always embodied the Ultimate Cause so 
far as was needful to its mental realization, they must neces- 
sarily resent the substitution of an Ultimate Cause which 
cannot be mentally realized at all. " You offer us," they 
say, " an unthinkable abstraction in place of a Being to- 
wards whom we may entertain definite feelings. Though 
we are told that the Absolute is real, yet since we are not al- 
lowed to conceive it, it might as well be a pure negation. In- 
stead of a Power which we can regard as having some sym- 
pathy with us, you would have us contemplate a Power to 
which no emotion whatever can be ascribed. And so we are 
to be deprived of the very substance of our faith." 

This kind of protest of necessity accompanies every 
change from a lower creed to a higher. The belief in a com- 
munity of nature between himself and the object of his 
worship, has always been to man a satisfactory one; and he 
has always accepted with reluctance those successively less 
concrete conceptions which have been forced upon him. 
Doubtless, in all times and places, it has consoled the barba- 
rian to think of his deities as so exactly like himself in na- 
ture, that they could be bribed by offerings of food ; and the 
assurance that deities could not be so propitiated, must have 



THE RECONCILIATION". 117 

been repugnant, because it deprived him of an easy method 
of gaining supernatural protection. To the Greeks it was 
manifestly a source of comfort that on occasions of difficulty 
they could obtain, through oracles, the advice of their gods, 
— nay, might even get the personal aid of their gods in bat- 
tle; and it was probably a very genuine anger which they 
visited upon philosophers who called in question these gross 
ideas of their mythology. A religion which teaches the 
Hindoo that it is impossible to purchase eternal happiness 
by placing himself under the wheel of Juggernaut, can 
scarcely fail to seem a cruel one to him; since it deprives 
him of the pleasurable consciousness that he can at will ex- 
change miseries for joys. Nor is it less clear that to our 
Catholic ancestors, the beliefs that crimes could be com- 
pounded for by the building of churches, that their own 
punishments and those of their relatives could be abridged 
by the saying of masses, and that divine aid or forgiveness 
might be gained through the intercession of saints, were 
highly solacing ones; and that Protestantism, in substitut- 
ing the conception of a God so comparatively unlike our- 
selves as not to be influenced by such methods, must have 
appeared to them hard and cold. Naturally, therefore, we 
must expect a further step in the same direction to meet with 
a similar resistance from outraged sentiments. No 

mental revolution can be accomplished without more or less 
of laceration. Be it a change of habit or a change of con- 
viction, it must, if the habit of conviction be strong, do vio- 
lence to some of the feelings; and these must of course op- 
pose it. For long-experienced, and therefore definite, 
sources of satisfaction, have to be substituted sources of sat- 
isfaction that have not been experienced, and are therefore 
indefinite. That which is relatively well known and real, 
has to be given up for that which is relatively unknown and 
ideal. And of course such an exchange cannot be made 
without a conflict involving pain. Especially then 

must there arise a strong antagonism to any alteration in so 



118 THE RECONCILIATION. 

deep and vital a conception as that with which we are here 
dealing. Underlying, as this conception does, all others, a 
modification of it threatens to reduce the superstructure to 
ruins. Or to change the metaphor — being the root with 
which are connected our ideas of goodness, rectitude, or 
duty, it appears impossible that it should be transformed 
without causing these to wither away and die. The whole 
higher part of the nature almost of necessity takes up arms 
against a change which, by destroying the established asso- 
ciations of thought, seems to eradicate morality. 

This is by no means all that has to be said for such pro- 
tests. There is a much deeper meaning in them. They do 
not simply express the natural repugnance to a revolution of 
belief, here made specially intense by the vital importance 
of the belief to be revolutionized ; but they also express an 
instinctive adhesion to a belief that is in one sense the best 
— the best for those who thus cling to it, though not ab- 
stractedly the best. For here let me remark that 
what were above spoken of as the imperfections of Religion, 
at first great but gradually diminishing, have been imperfec- 
tions only as measured by an absolute standard ; and not as 
measured by a relative one. Speaking generally, the relig- 
ion current in each age and among each people, has been as 
near an approximation to the truth as it was then and there 
possible for men to receive : the more or less concrete forms 
in which it has embodied the truth, have simply been the 
means of making thinkable what would otherwise have been 
unthinkable; and so have for the time being served to in- 
crease its impressiveness. If we consider the con- 
ditions of the case, we shall find this to be an unavoidable 
conclusion. During each stage of evolution, men must 
think in such terms of thought as they possess. While all 
the conspicuous changes of which they can observe the ori- 
gins, have men and animals as antecedents, they are unable 
to think of antecedents in general under any other shapes; 
and hence creative agencies are of necessity conceived by 



THE RECONCILIATION. 119 

them in these shapes. If during this phase, the concrete 
conceptions were taken from them, and the attempt made to 
give them comparatively abstract conceptions, the result 
would be to leave their minds with none at all; since the 
substituted ones could not be mentally represented. Simi- 
larly with every successive stage of religious belief, clown to 
the last. Though, as accumulating experiences slowly mo- 
dify the earliest ideas of causal personalities, there grow up 
more general and vague ideas of them; yet these cannot be 
at once replaced by others still more general and vague. 
Further experiences must supply the needful further ab- 
stractions, before the mental void left by the destruction of 
such inferior ideas can be filled by ideas of a superior order. 
And at the present time, the refusal to abandon a relatively 
concrete notion for a relatively abstract one, implies the ina- 
bility to frame the relatively abstract one; and so proves 
that the change would be premature and injurious. Still 

more clearly shall we see the injuriousness of any such 
premature change, on observing that the effects of a belief 
upon conduct must be diminished in proportion as the vivid- 
ness with which it is realized becomes less. Evils and bene- 
fits akin to those which the savage has personally felt, or 
learned from those who have felt them, are the only evils 
and benefits he can understand; and these must be looked 
for as coming in ways like those of which he has had ex- 
perience. His deities must be imagined to have like motives 
and passions and methods with the beings around him ; for 
motives and passions and methods of a higher character, 
being unknown to him, and in great measure unthinkable by 
him, cannot be so realized in thought as to influence his 
deeds. During every phase of civilization, the actions of 
the Unseen Reality, as well as the resulting rewards and 
punishments, being conceivable only in such forms as ex- 
perience furnishes, to supplant them by higher ones before 
wider experiences bave made higher ones conceivable, is to 
set up vague and uninfluential motives for definite and in- 



120 ™E RECONCILIATION. 

fluential ones. Even now, for the great mass of men, un- 
able through lack of culture to trace out with due clear- 
ness those good and bad consequences which conduct brings 
round through the established order of the Unknowable, it 
is needful that there should be vividly depicted future tor- 
ments and future joys — pains and pleasures of a definite 
kind, produced in a manner direct and simple enough to be 
clearly imagined. Nay still more must be conceded. 

Few if any are as yet fitted wholly to dispense with such 
conceptions as are current. The highest abstractions take so 
great a mental power to realize with any vividness, and are 
so inoperative upon conduct unless they are vividly realized, 
that their regulative effects must for a long period to come 
be appreciable on but a small minority. To see clearly how 
a right or wrong act generates consequences, internal and 
external, that go on branching out more widely as years 
progress, requires a rare power of analysis. To mentally 
represent even a single series of these consequences, as it 
stretches out into the remote future, requires an equally rare 
power of imagination. And to estimate these consequences 
in their totality, ever multiplying in number while dimin- 
ishing in intensity, requires a grasp of thought possessed by 
none. Yet it is only by such analysis, such imagination, and 
such grasp, that conduct can be rightly guided in the ab- 
sence of all other control : only so can ultimate rewards and 
penalties be made to outweigh proximate pains and plea- 
sures. Indeed, were it not that throughout the progress of 
the race, men's experiences of the effects of conduct have 
been slowdy generalized into principles — were it not that 
these principles have been from generation to generation in- 
sisted on by parents, upheld by public opinion, sanctified by 
religion, and enforced by threats of eternal damnation for 
disobedience — were it not that under these potent influ- 
ences, habits have been modified, and the feelings proper to 
them made innate — were it not, in short, that we have been 
rendered in a considerable degree organically moral; it is 



THE RECONCILIATION. 121 

certain that disastrous results would ensue from the removal 
of those strong and distinct motives which the current belief 
supplies. Even as it is, those who relinquish the faith in 
which they have been brought up, for this most abstract 
faith in which Science and Religion unite, may not uncom- 
monly fail to act up to their convictions. Left to their or- 
ganic morality, enforced only by general reasonings imper- 
fectly wrought out and difficult to keep before the mind, 
their defects of nature will often come out more strongly 
than they would have done under their previous creed. The 
substituted creed can become adequately operative only 
when it becomes, like the present one, an element in early 
education, and has the support of a strong social sanction. 
Xor will men be quite ready for it until, through the con- 
tinuance of a discipline which has already partially moulded 
them to the conditions of social existence, they are com- 
pletely moulded to those conditions. 

We must therefore recognize the resistance to a change 
of theological opinion, as in great measure salutary. It is 
not simply that strong and deep-rooted feelings are neces- 
sarily excited to antagonism — it is not simply that the high- 
est moral sentiments join in the condemnation of a change 
which seems to undermine their authority; but it is that a 
real adaptation exists between an established belief and the 
natures of those who defend it; and that the tenacity of the 
defence measures the completeness of the adaptation. 
Forms of religion, like forms of government, must be fit for 
those who live under them; and in the one case as in the 
other, that form which is fittest is that for which there is an 
instinctive preference. As certainly as a barbarous race 
needs a harsh terrestrial rule, and habitually shows attach- 
ment to a despotism capable of the necessary rigour; so cer- 
tainly docs such a race need a belief in a celestial rule that 
is similarly harsh, and habitually shows attachment to such 
a belief. And just in the same way that the sudden substi- 
tution of free institutions for tyrannical ones, is sure to be 
10 



122 THE RECONCILIATION. 

followed by a reaction; so, if a creed full of dreadful ideal 
penalties is all at once replaced by one presenting ideal pen- 
alties that are comparatively gentle, there will inevitably 
be a return to some modification of the old belief. The 

parallelism holds yet further. During those early stages in 
which there is an extreme incongruity between the relative- 
ly best and the absolutely best, both political and religious 
changes, when at rare intervals they occur, are necessarily 
violent; and necessarily entail violent retrogressions. But 
as the incongruity between that which is and that which 
should be, diminishes, the changes become more moderate, 
and are succeeded by more moderate retrogressions; until, 
as these movements and counter-movements decrease in 
amount and increase in frequency, they merge into an al- 
most continuous growth. That adhesion to old institutions 
and beliefs, which, in primitive societies, opposes an iron 
barrier to any advance, and which, after the barrier has been 
at length burst through, brings back the institutions and be- 
liefs from that too-forward position to which the momentum 
of change had carried them, and so helps to re-adapt social 
conditions to the popular character — this adhesion to old in- 
stitutions and beliefs, eventually becomes the constant check 
by which the constant advance is prevented from being too 
rapid. This holds true of religious creeds and forms, as of 
civil ones. And so we learn that theological conservatism, 
like political conservatism, has an all-important function. 

§ 33. That spirit of toleration which is so marked a 
characteristic of modern times, and is daily growing more 
conspicuous, has thus a far deeper meaning than is supposed. 
"What we commonly regard simply as a due respect for the 
right of private judgment, is really a necessary condition to 
the balancing of the progressive and conservative tendencies 
— is a means of maintaining the adaptation between men's 
beliefs and their natures. It is therefore a spirit to be fos- 
tered; and it is a spirit which the catholic thinker, who per- 



THE RECONCILIATION. 123 

ceives the functions of these various conflicting creeds, 
should above all other men display. Doubt- 

less whoever feels the greatness of the error to which 
his fellows cling and the greatness of the truth which 
they reject, will find it hard to show a due patience. 
It is hard for him to listen calmly to the futile argu- 
ments used in support of irrational doctrines, and to 
the misrepresentation of antagonistic doctrines. It is hard 
for him to bear the manifestation of that pride of ignorance 
which so far exceeds the pride of science. Xaturally enough 
such a one will be indignant when charged with irreligion 
because he declines to accept the carpenter-theory of crea- 
tion as the most worthy one. He may think it needless as it 
is difficult, to conceal his repugnance to a creed which tacit- 
ly ascribes to The Unknowable a love of adulation such as 
would be despised in a human being. Convinced as he is 
that all punishment, as we see it wrought out in the order of 
nature, is but a disguised beneficence, there will perhaps 
escape from him an angry condemnation of the belief that 
punishment is a divine vengeance, and that divine ven- 
geance is eternal. He may be tempted to show his con- 
tempt when he is told that actions instigated by an unselfish 
sympathy or by a pure love of rectitude, are intrinsically 
sinful; and that conduct is truly good only when it is due 
to a faith whose openly-professed motive is other-worldli- 
ness. But he must restrain such feelings. Though he may 
be unable to do this during the excitement of controversy, 
or when otherwise brought face to face with current super- 
stitions, he must yet qualify his antagonism in calmer mo- 
ments; so that his mature judgment and resulting conduct 
may be without bias. 

To this end let him ever bear in mind three cardinal 
facts — two of them already dwelt upon, and one still to be 
pointed out. The first is that with which we set out; 

namely the existence of a fundamental verity under all 
forms of religion, however degraded. In each of them 



124 THE RECONCILIATION. 

there is a soul of truth. Through the gross body of dogmas 
traditions and rites which contain it, it is always visible — 
dimly or clearly as the case may be. This it is which gives 
vitality even to the rudest creed; this it is which survives 
every modification ; and this it is which we must not forget 
when condemning the forms under which it is present- 
ed. The second of these cardinal facts, set forth at 
length in the foregoing section, is, that while those concrete 
elements in which each creed embodies this soul of truth, 
are bad as measured by an absolute standard, they are good 
as measured by a relative standard. Though from higher 
perceptions they hide the abstract verity within them; yet 
to lower perceptions they render this verity more appreciable 
than it would otherwise be. They serve to make real and in- 
fluential over men, that which would else be unreal and un- 
innuential. Or we may call them the protective envelopes, 
without which the contained truth would die. The 
remaining cardinal fact is, that these various beliefs are 
parts of the constituted order of things; and not accidental 
but necessary parts. Seeing how one or other of them is 
everywhere present ; is of perennial growth ; and when cut 
down, redevelopes in a form but slightly modified; we 
cannot avoid the inference that they are neeedful accom- 
paniments of human life, severally fitted to the societies in 
which they are indigenous. From the highest point of 
view, we must recognize them as elements in that great evo- 
lution of which the beginning and end are beyond our 
knowledge or conception — as modes of manifestation of The 
Unknowable ; and as having this for their warrant. 

Our toleration therefore should be the widest possible. 
Or rather, we should aim at something beyond toleration, as 
commonly understood. In dealing with alien beliefs, our 
endeavour must be, not simply to refrain from injustice of 
word or deed; but also to do justice by an open recognition 
of positive worth. We must qualify our disagreement with 
as much as may be of sympathy. 



THE RECONCILIATION. 125 

§ 34. These admissions will perhaps be held to imply, 
that the current theology should be passively accepted ; ,or, 
at any rate, should not be actively opposed. " Why," it 
may be asked, " if all creeds have an average fitness to their 
times and places, should we not rest content with that to 
which we are born? If the established belief contains an 
essential truth — if the forms under which it presents this 
truth, though intrinsically bad, are extrinsically good — if 
the abolition of these forms would be at present detrimental 
to the great majority — nay, if there are scarcely any to 
whom the ultimate and most abstract belief can furnish an 
adequate rule of life ; surely it is wrong, for the present at 
least, to propagate this ultimate and most abstract belief." 

The reply is, that though existing religious ideas and in- 
stitutions have an average adaptation to the characters of the 
people who live under them ; yet, as these characters are ever 
changing, the adaptation is ever becoming imperfect; and 
the ideas and institutions need remodelling with a frequency 
proportionate to the rapidity of the change. Hence, while it 
is requisite that free play should be given to conservative 
thought and action, progressive thought and action must 
also have free play. Without the agency of both, there can 
not be those continual re-adaptations which orderly progress 
demands. 

Whoever hesitates to utter that which he thinks the 
highest truth, lest it should be too much in advance of the 
time, may reassure himself by looking at his acts from an im- 
personal point of view. Let him duly realize the fact that 
opinion is the agency through which character adapts exter- 
nal arrangements to itself — that his opinion rightly forms 
part of this agency — is a unit of force, constituting, with 
other such units, the general power which works out social 
changes; and he will perceive that he may properly give 
full utterance to his innermost conviction: leaving it to pro- 
duce what effect it may. It is not for nothing that he has in 
him these sympathies with some principles and repugnance 



126 THE RECONCILIATION. 

to others. He, with all his capacities, and aspirations, and 
beliefs, is not an accident, but a product of the time. He 
must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, 
he is a parent of the future; and that his thoughts are as 
children born to him, which he may not carelessly let die. 
lie, like every other man, may properly consider himself 
as one of the myriad agencies through whom works the Un- 
known Cause; and when the Unknown Cause produces in 
him a certain belief, he is thereby authorized to profess and 
act out that belief. For, to render in their highest sense the 
words of the poet — 

Nature is made better by no mean, 

But nature makes that mean : over that art 
Which you say adds to nature, is an art 
That nature makes. 

Not as adventitious therefore will the wise man regard the 
faith which is in him. The highest truth he sees he will 
fearlessly utter; knowing that, let what may come of it, he 
is thus playing his right part in the world — knowing that if 
he can effect the change he aims at — well: if not — well 
also; though not so well. 



PART II. 



THE KNOWABLE. 



CHAPTEE I. 

PHILOSOPHY DEFINED. 

§ 35. After concluding that we cannot know the ulti- 
mate nature of that which is manifested to us, there arise 
the questions — What is it that we know? In what sense 
do we know it ? And in what consists our highest knowledge 
of it? Having repudiated as impossible the Philosophy 
which professes to formulate Being as distinguished from 
Appearance, it becomes needful to say what Philosophy 
truly is — not simply to specify its limits, but to specify its 
character within those limits. Given a certain sphere as the 
sphere to which human intelligence is restricted, and there 
remains to define the peculiar product of human intelligence 
which may still be called Philosophy. 

In doing this, we may advantageously avail ourselves of 
the method followed at the outset, of separating from con- 
ceptions that are partially or mainly erroneous, the element 
of truth they contain. As in the chapter on " Religion and 
Science," it was inferred that religious beliefs, wrong as 
they might individually be in their particular forms, never- 
theless probably each contained an essential verity, and that 
this was most likely common to them all ; so in this place it 
is to be inferred that past and present beliefs respecting the 
nature of Philosophy, are none of them wholly false, and 
that that in which they arc true is that in which they agree. 
We have here, then, to do what was done there — " to com- 
pare all opinions of the same genus; to set aside as more or 

129 



130 PHILOSOPHY DEFINED. 

less discrediting one another those various special and con- 
crete elements in which such opinions disagree; to observe 
what remains after the discordant constituents have been 
eliminated; and to find for this remaining constituent that 
abstract expression which holds true throughout its diver- 
gent modifications." • 

§ 36. Earlier speculations being passed over, we see 
that among the Greeks, before there had arisen any notion 
of Philosophy in general, apart from particular forms of 
Philosophy, the particular forms of it from which the gen- 
eral notion was to arise, were hypotheses respecting some 
universal principle that constituted the essence of all con- 
crete kinds of being. To the question — " What is that in- 
variable existence of which these are variable states f " there 
were sundry answers — Water, Air, Fire. A class of hypo- 
theses of this all-embracing character having been pro- 
pounded, it became possible for Pythagoras to conceive of 
Philosophy in the abstract, as knowledge the most remote 
from practical ends; and to define it as " knowledge of im- 
material and eternal things: " " the cause of the material 
existence of things," being, in his view, Number. There- 
after, we find continued a pursuit of Philosophy as some 
ultimate interpretation of the Universe, assumed to be pos- 
sible, whether actually reached in any case or not. And in 
the course of this pursuit, various such ultimate interpreta- 
tions were given as that " One is the beginning of all 
things; " that " the One is God; " that " the One is Fi- 
nite; " that " the One is Infinite; " that " Intelligence is the 
governing principle of things; " and so on. From all 
which it is plain that the knowledge supposed to constitute 
Philosophy, differed from other knowledge in its transcend- 
ent, exhaustive character. In the subsequent course 
of speculation, after the Sceptics had shaken men's faith in 
their powers of reaching such transcendent knowledge, there 
grew up a much-restricted conception of Philosophy. Un- 



PHILOSOPHY DEFINED. 131 

der Socrates, and still more under the Stoics, Philosophy be- 
came little else than the doctrine of right living. Its sub- 
ject-matter was practically cut down to the proper ruling of 
conduct, public and private, ^"ot indeed that the proper 
ruling of conduct, as conceived by sundry of the later Greek 
thinkers to constitute subject-matter of Philosophy, an- 
swered to what was popularly understood by the proper rul- 
ing of conduct. The injunctions of Zeno were not of the 
same class as those which guided men from early times 
downwards, in their daily observances, sacrifices, customs, 
all having more or less of religious sanction ; but they were 
principals of action enunciated without reference to times, 
or persons, or special cases. What, then, was the con- 

stant element in these unlike ideas of Philosophy held by the 
ancients? Clearly the character in which this last idea 
agrees with the first, is that within its sphere of inquiry, Phi- 
losophy seeks for wide and deep truths, as distinguished 
from the multitudinous detailed truths which the surfaces 
of things and actions present. 

By comparing the conceptions of Philosophy that have 
been current in modern times, we get a like result. The 
disciples of Schelling, Fichte, and their kindred, join the 
Hegelian in ridiculing the so-called Philosophy which has 
usurped the title in England. !Not without reason, they 
laugh on reading of " Philosophical instruments; " and 
would deny that any one of the papers in the Philosophical 
Tra/n motions has the least claim to come under such a title. 
Retaliating on their critics, the English may, and most of 
them do, reject as absurd the imagined Philosophy of the 
German schools. As consciousness cannot be transcended, 
they bold that whether consciousness does or does not vouch 
for the existence of something beyond itself, it at any rate 
cannot comprehend that something; and that hence, in so 
far as any Philosophy professes to be an Ontology, it is false. 
These two news cancel one another over large parts of their 
areas. The English criticism on the ( rermans, cuts off from 



132 PHILOSOPHY DEFINED. 

Philosophy all that is regarded as absolute knowledge. 
The German criticism on the English tacitly implies that if 
Philosophy is limited to the relative, it is at any rate not 
concerned with those aspects of the relative which are em- 
bodied in mathematical formulae, in accounts of physical 
researches, in chemical analyses, or in descriptions of species 
and reports of physiological experiments. Now 

what has the too-wide German conception in common with 
the conception general among English men of science; 
which, narrow and crude as it is, is not so narrow and crude 
as their misuse of the word philosophical indicates? The 
two have this in common, that neither Germans nor English 
apply the word to unsystematized knowledge — to knowledge 
quite uncoordinated with other knowledge. Even the most 
limited specialists would not describe as philosophical, an 
essay which, dealing wholly with details, manifested no per- 
ception of the bearings of those details on wider truths. 

The vague idea thus raised of that in which the various 
conceptions of Philosophy agree, may be rendered more 
definite by comparing what has been known in England as 
[Natural Philosophy with that development of it called Posi- 
tive Philosophy. Though, as M. Comte admits, the two 
consist of knowledge essentially the same in kind; yet, by 
having put this kind of knowledge into a more coherent 
form, he has given it more of that character to which the 
term philosophical is applied. Without expressing any 
opinion respecting the truth of his co-ordination, it must be 
conceded that by the fact of its co-ordination, the body of 
knowledge organized by him has a better claim to the title 
Philosophy, than has the comparatively-unorganized body 
of knowledge named Natural Philosophy. 

If subdivisions of Philosophy, or more special forms of 
it, be contrasted with one another, or with the whole, the 
same implication comes out. Moral Philosophy and Politi- 
cal Philosophy, agree with Philosophy at large in the com- 
prehensiveness of their reasonings and conclusions. Though 



PHILOSOPHY DEFINED. 133 

under the head of Moral Philosophy, we treat of human ac- 
tions as right or wrong, we do not include special directions 
for behaviour in the nursery, at table, or on the exchange ; 
and though Political Philosophy has for its topic the con- . 
duct of men in their public relations, it does not concern it- 
self with modes of voting or details of administration. Both 
of these sections of Philosophy contemplate particular in- 
stances, only as illustrating truths of wide application. 

§ 37. Thus every one of these conceptions implies the 
belief in a possible way of knowing things more completely 
than they are known through simple experiences, mechani- 
cally accumulated in memory or heaped up in cyclopaedias. 
Though in the extent of the sphere which they have sup- 
posed Philosophy to fill, men have differed and still differ 
very widely; yet there is a real if unavowed agreement 
among them in signifying by this title a knowledge which 
transcends ordinary knowledge. That which remains as the 
common element in these conceptions of Philosophy, after 
the elimination of their discordant elements, is — knowledge 
of the highest degree of generality. "We see this tacitly 
asserted by the simultaneous inclusion of God, Nature, and 
Man, within its scope; or still more distinctly by the divi- 
sion of Philosophy as a whole into Theological, Physical, 
Ethical, &c. For that which characterizes the genus of 
which these are species, must be something more general 
than that which distinguishes any one species. 

What must be the specific shape here given to this con- 
ception ? The range of intelligence we find to be limited to 
the relative. Though persistently conscious of a Power 
manifested to us, we have abandoned as futile the attempt 
to learn anything respecting the nature of that Power; and 
so have shut out Philosophy from much of the domain sup- 
posed to belong to it. The domain left is that occupied by 
Science. Science concerns itself with the co-existences and 
sequences among phenomena; grouping these at first into 



134 PHILOSOPHY DEFINED. 

generalizations of a simple or low order, and rising gradual : - 
ly to higher and more extended generalizations. But if so, 
where remains any subject-matter for Philosophy? 

The reply is — Philosophy may still properly be the title 
retained for knowledge of the highest generality. Science 
means merely the family of the Sciences — stands for noth- 
ing more than the sum of knowledge formed of their con- 
tributions; and ignores the knowledge constituted by the 
fusion of all these contributions into a whole. As usage has 
defined it, Science consists of truths existing more or less 
separated; and does not recognize these truths as entirely 
integrated. An illustration will make the difference clear. 

If we ascribe the flow of a river to the same force which 
causes the fall of a stone, we make a statement, true as far 
as it goes, that belongs to a certain division of Science. If, 
in further explanation of a movement produced by gravita- 
tion in a direction almost horizontal, we cite the law that 
fluids subject to mechanical forces exert re-active forces 
which are equal in all directions, we formulate a wider 
fact, containing the scientific interpretation of many other 
phenomena; as those presented by the fountain, the hy- 
draulic press, the steam-engine, the air-pump. And when 
this proposition, extending only to the dynamics of fluids, 
is merged in a proposition of general dynamics, compre- 
hending the laws of movement of solids as well as of fluids, 
there is reached a yet higher truth; but still a truth that 
comes wholly within the realm of Science. Again, 

looking around at Birds and Mammals, suppose we say that 
air-breathing animals are hot-blooded; and that then, re- 
membering how Beptiles, which also breathe air, are not 
much warmer than their media, we say, more truly, that ani- 
mals (bulks being equal) have temperatures proportionate to 
the quantities of air they breathe; and that then, calling to 
mind certain large fish which maintain a heat considerably 
above that of the water they swim in, we further correct 
the generalization by saying that the temperature varies as 



PHILOSOPHY DEFINED. 135 

the rate of oxygenation of the blood ; and that then, modify- 
ing the statement to meet other criticisms, we finally assert 
the relation to be between the amount of heat and the 
amount of molecular change — supposing we do all this, we 
state scientific truths that are successively wider and more 
complete, but truths which, to the last, remain purely scien- 
tific. Once more if, guided by mercantile ex- 
periences, we reach the conclusion that prices rise when the 
demand exceeds the supply; and that commodities flow 
from places where they are abundant to places where they 
are scarce ; and that the industries of different localities are 
determined in their kinds mainly by the facilities which the 
localities afford for them ; and if, studying these generaliza- 
tions of political economy, we trace them all to the truth 
that each man seeks satisfaction for his desires in ways cost- 
ing the smallest efforts — such social phenomena being re- 
sultants of individual actions so guided; we are still dealing 
with the propositions of Science only. 

And now how is Philosophy constituted? It is consti- 
tuted by carrying a stage further the process indicated. So 
long as these truths are known only apart and regarded as 
independent, even the most general of them cannot without 
laxity of speech be called philosophical. But when, having 
been severally reduced to a simple mechanical axiom, a 
principle of molecular physics, and a law of social action, 
they are contemplated together as corollaries of some ulti- 
mate truth, then we rise to the kind of knowledge that con- 
stitutes Philosophy proper. 

The truths of Philosophy thus bear the same relation to 
the highest scientific truths, that each of these bears to 
lower scientific truths. As each widest generalization of 
Science comprehends and consolidates the narrower gener- 
alizations of its own division; so the generalizations of 
Philosophy comprehend and consolidate the widest gener- 
alizations of Science. It is therefore a knowledge the ex- 
treme opposite in kind to that which experience first accu- 



136 PHILOSOPHY DEFINED. 

nralates. It is the final product of that process which begins 
with a mere colligation of crude observations, goes on estab- 
lishing propositions that are broader and more separated 
from particular cases, and ends in universal propositions. 
Or to bring the definition to its simplest and clearest form: 
— Knowledge of the lowest kind is un-unified knowledge ; 
Science is partially -unified knowledge ; Philosophy is com- 
fletely-unified knowledge. 

§ 38. Such, at least, is the meaning we must here give to 
the word Philosophy, if we employ it at all. In so defining 
it, we accept that which is common to the various concep- 
tions of it current among both ancients and moderns — re- 
jecting those elements in which these conceptions disagree, 
or exceed the possible range of intelligence. In short, we 
are simply giving precision to that application of the word 
which is gradually establishing itself. 

Two forms of Philosophy, as thus understood, may be 
distinguished and dealt with separately. On the one hand, 
the things contemplated may be the universal truths: all 
particular truths referred to being used simply for proof or 
elucidation of these universal truths. On the other hand, 
setting out with the universal truths as granted, the things 
contemplated may be the particular truths as interpreted by 
them. In both cases we deal with the universal truths; 
but in the one case they are passive and in the other case 
active — in the one case they form the products of explora- 
tion and in the other case the instruments of exploration. 
These divisions we may appropriately call General Philoso- 
phy and Special Philosophy respectively. 

The remainder of this volume will be devoted to General 
Philosophy. Special Philosophy, divided into parts deter- 
mined by the natures of the phenomena treated, will be the 
subject-matter of subsequent volumes. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 



§ 39. Every thought involves a whole system of 
thoughts; and ceases to exist if severed from its various cor- 
relatives. As we cannot isolate a single organ of a living 
body, and deal with it as though it had a life independent of 
the rest; so, from the organized structure of our cognitions, 
we cannot cut out one, and proceed as though it had sur- 
vived the separation. The development of formless proto- 
plasm into an embryo, is a specialization of parts, the dis- 
tinctness of which increases only as fast as their combination 
increases — each becomes a distinguishable organ only on 
condition that it is bound up with others, which have simul- 
taneously become distinguishable organs; and, similarly, 
from the unformed material of consciousness, a developed 
intelligence can arise only by a process which, in making 
thoughts defined also makes them mutually dependent — 
establishes among them certain vital connections the de- 
struction of which causes instant death of the thoughts. 
Overlooking this all-important truth, however, speculators 
have habitually set out with some professedly-simple datum 
or data; have supposed themselves to assume nothing be- 
yond this datum or these data; and have thereupon pro- 
ceeded to prove or disprove propositions which were, by im- 
plication, already unconsciously asserted along with that 
which was consciously asserted. 

This reasoning in a circle has resulted from the misuse of 
11 137 



138 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

words: not that misuse commonly enlarged upon — not the 
misapplication or change of meaning whence so much error 
arises; but a more radical and less obvious misuse. Only 
that thought which is directly indicated by each word has 
been contemplated; while numerous thoughts indirectly 
indicated have been left out of consideration. Because a 
spoken or written word can be detached from all others, it 
has been inadvertently assumed that the thing signified by 
a word can be detached from the things signified by all 
other words. Though more-deeply hidden, the mistake is 
of the same order as that made by the Greeks, who were 
continually led astray by the belief in some community of 
nature between the symbol and that which it symbolized. 
For though here community of nature is not assumed to the 
same extent as of old, it is assumed to this extent, that 
because the symbol is separable from all other symbols, and 
can be contemplated as having an independent existence, 
so the thought symbolized may be thus separated and thus 
contemplated. How profoundly this error vitiates 

the conclusions of one who makes it, we shall quickly see on 
taking a case. The sceptical metaphysician, wishing his 
reasonings to be as rigorous as possible, says to himself — 
" I will take for granted only this one thing." "What now 
are the tacit assumptions inseparable from his avowed as- 
sumption? The resolve itself indirectly asserts that there is 
some other thing, or are some other things, which he might 
assume ; for it is impossible to think of unity without think- 
ing of a correlative duality or multiplicity. In the very act, 
therefore, of restricting himself, he takes in much that is 
professedly left out. Again, before proceeding he must give 
a definition of that which he assumes. Is nothing unex- 
pressed involved in the thought of a thing as defined? 
There is the thought of something excluded by the definition 
— there is, as before, the thought of other existence. But 
there is much more. Defining a thing, or setting a limit to 
it, implies the thought of a limit; and limit cannot be 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 139 

thought of apart from some notion of quantity — extensive, 
protensive, or intensive. Further, definition is impossible 
unless there enters into it the thought of difference; and 
difference, besides being unthinkable without having two 
things that differ, implies the existence of other differences 
than the one recognized; since otherwise there can be no 
general conception of difference. Xor is this all. As before 
pointed out (§24) all thought involves the consciousness of 
likeness: the one thing avowedly postulated cannot be 
known absolutely as one thing, but can be known only as of 
such or such kind — only as classed with other things in 
virtue of some common attribute. Thus along with the 
single avowed datum, we have surreptitiously brought in a 
number of una vowed data — existence other than that alleged, 
quantity, number, limit, difference, likeness, class, attribute. 
Saying nothing of the many more which an exhaustive 
analysis would disclose, we have in these unacknowledged 
postulates, the outlines of a general theory ; and that theory 
can be neither proved nor disproved by the metaphysician's 
argument. Insist that his symbol shall be interpreted at 
every step into its full meaning, with all the complementary 
thoughts implied by that meaning, and you find already 
taken for granted in the premises that which in the conclu- 
sion is asserted or denied. 

In what way, then, must Philosophy set out? The 
developed intelligence is framed upon certain organized 
and consolidated conceptions of which it cannot divest 
itself; and which it can no more stir without using than 
the body can stir without help of its limbs. In what way, 
then, is it possible for intelligence, striving after Philoso- 
phy, to give any account of these conceptions, and to show 
either their validity or their invalidity? There is but one 
way. Those of them which are vital, or cannot be severed 
from the rest without mental dissolution, must be assumed 
as true provifdondlly. The fundamental intuitions that are 
essential to the process of thinking, must be temporarily 



140 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

accepted as unquestionable: leaving the assumption of 
their unquestionableness to be justified by the results. 

§ 40. How is it to be justified by the results? As any 
other assumption is justified — by ascertaining that all the 
conclusions deducible from it, correspond with the facts as 
directly observed — by showing the agreement between the 
experiences it leads us to anticipate, and the actual ex- 
periences. There is no mode of establishing the validity of 
any belief, except that of showing its entire congruity with 
all other beliefs. If we suppose that a mass which has a 
certain colour and lustre is the substance called gold, how 
do we proceed to prove the hypothesis that it is gold? We 
represent to ourselves certain other impressions which gold 
produces on us, and then observe whether, under the appro- 
priate conditions, this particular mass produces on us such 
impressions. We remember, as we say, that gold has a high 
specific gravity; and if, on poising this substance on the 
finger, we find that its weight is great considering its bulk, 
we take the correspondence between the represented im- 
pression and the presented impression as further evidence 
that the substance is gold. In response to a demand for 
more proof, we compare certain other ideal and real effects. 
Knowing that gold, unlike most metals, is insoluble in 
nitric acid, we imagine to ourselves a drop of nitric acid 
placed on the surface of this yellow, glittering, heavy sub- 
stance, without causing corrosion; and when, after so plac- 
ing a drop of nitric acid, no effervescence or other change 
follows, we hold this agreement between the anticipation 
and the experience to be an additional reason for thinking 
that the substance is gold. And if, similarly, the great 
malleability possessed by gold we find to be paralleled by 
the great malleability of this substance; if, like gold, it 
fuses at about 2,000 deg.; crystallizes in octahedrons; is dis- 
solved by selenic acid; and, under all conditions, does what 
gold does under such conditions; the conviction that it is 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 141 

gold reaches what we regard as the highest certainty — we 
know it to be gold in the fullest sense of knowing. For, 
as we here see, our whole knowledge of gold consists in 
nothing more than the consciousness of a definite set of im- 
pressions, standing in definite relations, disclosed under 
definite conditions; and if, in a present experience, the 
impressions, relations, and conditions, perfectly correspond 
with those in past experiences, the cognition has all the 
validity of which it is capable. So that, generalizing the 
statement, hypotheses, down even to those simple ones 
which we make from moment to moment in our acts of re- 
cognition, are verified when entire congruity is found to 
exist between the states of consciousness constituting them, 
and certain other states of consciousness given in percep- 
tion, or reflection, or both; and no other knowledge is pos- 
sible for us than that which consists of the consciousness of 
such congruities and their correlative incongruities. 

Hence Philosophy, compelled to make those fundamen- 
tal assumptions without which thought is impossible, has to 
justify them by showing their congruity with all other dicta 
of consciousness. Debarred as we are from everything 
beyond the relative, truth, raised to its highest form, can be 
for us nothing more than perfect agreement, throughout the 
whole range of our experience, between those representa- 
tions of things which we distinguish as ideal and those pre- 
sentations of things which we distinguish as real. If, by 
discovering a proposition to be untrue, we mean nothing 
more than discovering a difference between a thing ex- 
pected and a thing perceived; then a body of conclusions 
in which no such difference anywhere occurs, must be what 
we mean by an entirely true body of conclusions. 

And here, indeed, it becomes also obvious that, setting 
out with these fundamental intuitions provisionally assumed 
to be true — that is, provisionally assumed to be congruous 
with all other dicta of consciousness — the process of proving 
or disproving the congruity becomes the business of Philoso- 



142 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

phy; and the complete establishment of the congruity be- 
comes the same thing as the complete unification of knowl- 
edge in which Philosophy reaches its goal. 

§ 41. What is this datum, or rather, what are these data, 
which Philosophy cannot do without? Clearly one pri- 
mordial datum is involved in the foregoing statement. 
Already by implication we have assumed, and must for ever 
continue to assume, that congruities and incongruities 
exist, and are cognizable by us. We cannot avoid accept- 
ing as true the verdict of consciousness that some mani- 
festations are like one another and some are unlike one 
another. Unless consciousness be a competent judge of the 
likeness and unlikeness of its states, there can never be 
established that congruity throughout the whole of our 
cognitions which constitutes Philosophy ; nor can there ever 
be established that incongruity by which only any hypo- 
thesis, philosophical or other, can be shown erroneous. 

The impossibility of moving towards either conviction or 
scepticism without postulating thus much, we shall see even 
more vividly on observing how every step in reasoning pos- 
tulates thus much, over and over again. To say that all 
things of a certain class are characterized by a certain attri- 
bute, is to say that all things known as like in those various 
attributes connoted by their common name, are also like in 
having the particular attribute specified. To say that some 
object of immediate attention belongs to this class, is to say 
that it is like all the others in the various attributes con- 
noted by their common name. To say that this object pos- 
sesses the particular attribute specified, is to say that it is 
like the others in this respect also. While, contrariwise, the 
assertion that the attribute thus inferred to be possessed by 
it, is not possessed, implies the assertion that in place of one 
of the alleged likenesses there exists an unlikeness. Neither 
affirmation nor denial, therefore, of any deliverance of rea- 
son, or any element of such deliverance, is possible without 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 143 

accepting the dictum of consciousness that certain of its 
states are like or unlike. Whence, besides seeing that the 
unified knowledge constituting a completed Philosophy, is 
a knowledge composed of parts that are universally congru- 
ous; and besides seeing that it is the business of Philosophy 
to establish their universal congruit y ; we also see that every 
act of the process by which this universal congruity is to be 
established, down even to the components of every inference 
and every observation, consists in the establishment of con- 
gruity. 

Consequently, the assumption that a congruity or an in- 
congruity exists when consciousness testifies to it, is an in- 
evitable assumption. It is useless to say, as Sir W. Hamil- 
ton does, that " consciousness is to be presumed trustworthy 
until proved mendacious." It cannot be proved mendacious 
in this, its primordial act; since, as we see, proof involves a 
repeated acceptance of this primordial act. Nay more, the 
very thing supposed to be proved cannot be expressed with- 
out recognizing this primordial act as valid ; since unless Ave 
accept the verdict of consciousness that they differ, menda- 
city and trustworthiness become identical. Process and 
product of reasoning both disappear in the absence of this 
assumption. 

It may, indeed, be often shown that what, after careless 
comparison, were supposed to be like states of consciousness, 
are really unlike ; or that what were carelessly supposed to 
be unlike, are really like. But how is this shown? Simply 
by a more careful comparison, mediately or immediately 
made. And what does acceptance of the revised conclusion 
imply ? Simply that a deliberate verdict of consciousness is 
preferable to a rash one ; or, to speak more definitely — that 
a consciousness of likeness or difference which survives 
critical examination must be accepted in place of one that 
does not survive — the very survival being itself the accept- 
ance. 

And here we get to the bottom of the matter. The 



144 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

permanence of a consciousness of likeness or difference, 
is our ultimate warrant for asserting the existence of like- 
ness or difference ; and, in fact, we mean by the existence of 
likeness or difference, nothing more than the permanent 
consciousness of it. To say that a given congruity or incon- 
gruity exists, is simply our way of saying that we invariably 
have a consciousness of it along with a consciousness of the 
compared things. We know nothing more of existence than 
a continued manifestation. 

§ 42. But Philosophy requires for its datum some sub- 
stantive proposition. To recognize as unquestionable a cer- 
tain fundamental process of thought, is not enough: we 
must recognize as unquestionable some fundamental prod- 
uct of thought, reached by this process. If Philosophy is 
completely-unified knowledge- — if the unification of knowl- 
edge is to be effected only by showing that some ultimate 
proposition includes and consolidates all the results of expe- 
rience ; then, clearly, this ultimate proposition which has to 
be proved congruous with all others, must express a piece of 
knowledge, and not the validity of an act of knowing. 
Having assumed the trustworthiness of consciousness, we 
have also to assume as trustworthy some deliverance of con- 
sciousness. 

What must this be? Must it not be one affirming the 
widest and most profound distinction which things present ? 
Must it not be a statement of congruities and incongruities 
more general than any other? An ultimate principle that 
is to unify all experience, must be co-extensive with all ex- 
perience — cannot be concerned with experience of one order 
or several orders, but must be concerned with universal ex- 
perience. That which Philosophy takes as its datum, must 
be an assertion of some likeness and difference to which 
all other likenesses and differences are secondary. If know- 
ing is classifying, or grouping the like and separating the 
unlike; and if the unification of knowledge proceeds by 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 145 

arranging the smaller classes of like experiences within the 
larger, and these within the still larger; then, the proposi- 
tion by which knowledge is unified, must be one specifying 
the antithesis between two ultimate classes of experiences, in 
which all others merge. 

Let us now consider what these classes are. In drawing 
the distinction between them, we cannot avoid using words 
that have indirect implications wider than their direct mean- 
ings — we cannot avoid arousing thoughts that imply the 
very distinction which it is the object of the analysis to 
establish. Keeping this fact in mind, we can do no more 
than ignore the connotations of the words, and attend only 
to the things they avowedly denote. 

§ 43. Setting out from the conclusion lately reached, 
that all things known to us are manifestations of the Un- 
knowable; and suppressing, so far as we may, every hypo- 
thesis respecting the something which underlies one or other 
order of these manifestations; we find that the manifesta- 
tions, considered simply as such, are divisible into two great 
classes, called by some impressions and ideas. The implica- 
tions of these words are apt to vitiate the reasonings of those 
who use the words; and though it may be possible to use 
them only with reference to the differential characteristics 
they are meant to indicate, it is best to avoid the risk of 
making unacknowledged assumptions. The term sensation, 
too, commonly used as the equivalent of impression, implies 
certain psychological theories — tacitly, if not openly, postu- 
lates a sensitive organism and something acting upon it; 
and can scarcely be employed without bringing these postu- 
lates into the thoughts and embodying them in the in- 
ferences. Similarly, the phrase state of consciousness, as 
signifying either an impression or an idea, is objectionable. 
As we cannot think of a state without thinking of something 
of which it is a state, and which is capable of different 
states, there is involved a foregone conclusion — an unde- 



146 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

veloped system of metaphysics. Here, accepting the in- 
evitable implication that the manifestations imply some- 
thing manifested, onr aim mnst be to avoid any further 
implications. Though we cannot exclude further implica- 
tions from our thoughts, and cannot carry on our argument 
without tacit recognitions of them, we can at any rate refuse 
to recognize them in the terms with which we set out. We 
may do this most effectually by classing the manifestations 
as vivid and faint respectively. Let us consider what are 
the several distinctions that exist between these. 

And first a few words on this most conspicuous distinc- 
tion which these antithetical names imply. Manifestations 
that occur under the conditions called those of perception 
(and the conditions so called Ave must here, as much as possi- 
ble, separate from all hypotheses, and regard simply as 
themselves a certain group of manifestations) are ordinarily 
far more distinct than those which occur under the condi- 
tions known as those of reflection, or memory, or imagina- 
tion, or ideation. These vivid manifestations do, indeed, 
sometimes differ but little from the faint ones. When near- 
ly dark we may be unable to decide whether a certain mani- 
festation belongs to the vivid order or the faint order — 
whether, as we say, we really see something or fancy we 
see it. In like manner, between a very feeble sound and the 
imagination of a sound, it is occasionally difficult to discrimi- 
nate. But these exceptional cases are extremely rare in 
comparison with the enormous mass of cases in which, from 
instant to instant, the vivid manifestations distinguish them- 
selves unmistakeably from the faint. Conversely, 
it also now and then happens (though under conditions 
which we significantly distinguish as abnormal) that mani- 
festations of the faint order become so strong as to be mis- 
taken for those of the vivid order. Ideal sights and sounds 
are in the insane so much intensified as to be classed with 
real sights and sounds — ideal and real being here supposed 
to imply no other contrast than that which we are consider- 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 147 

ing. These cases of illusion, as we call them, bear, however, 
so small a ratio to the great mass of cases, that we may safely 
neglect them, and say that the relative faintness of these 
manifestations of the second order is so marked, that we are 
never in doubt as to their distinctness from those of the first 
order. Or if we recognize the exceptional occurrence of 
doubt, the recognition serves but to introduce the significant 
fact that we have other means of determining to which 
order a particular manifestation belongs, when the test of 
comparative vividness fails us. 

Manifestations of the vivid order precede, in our experi- 
ence, those of the faint order; or, in the terms quoted 
above, the idea is an imperfect and feeble repetition of the 
original impression. To put the facts in historical sequence 
— there is first a presented manifestation of the vivid order, 
and then, afterwards, there may come a represented mani- 
festation that is like it except in being much less distinct. 
Besides the universal experience that after having those 
vivid manifestations which we call particular places and 
persons and things, we can have those faint manifestations 
which we call recollections of the places, persons, and 
things, but cannot have these previously; and besides the 
universal experience that before tasting certain substances 
and smelling certain perfumes we are without the faint 
manifestations known as ideas of their tastes and smells ; we 
have also the fact that where certain orders of the vivid 
manifestations are shut out (as the visible from the blind 
and the audible from the deaf) the corresponding faint 
manifestations never come into existence. It is true 

that in some cases the faint manifestations precede the vivid. 
AVhat we call a conception of a machine may presently be 
followed by a vivid manifestation matching it — a so-called 
actual machine. But in the first place this, occurrence of the 
vivid manifestation after the faint, has no analogy with the 
occurrence of the faint after the vivid — its sequence is not 
spontaneous like thai of the idea after the impression. And 



148 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

in the second place, though a faint manifestation of this 
kind may occur before the vivid one answering to it, yet its 
component parts may not. Without the foregoing vivid 
manifestations of wheels and bars and cranks, the inventor 
could have no faint manifestation of his new machine. 
Thus, the occurrence of the faint manifestations is made pos- 
sible by the previous occurrence of the vivid. They are 
distinguished from one another as independent and de- 
pendent. 

These two orders of manifestations form concurrent 
series; or rather let us call them, not series, which implies 
linear arrangements, but heterogeneous streams or pro- 
cessions. These run side by side; each now broadening 
and now narrowing, each now threatening to obliterate its 
neighbour, and now in turn threatened with obliteration, 
but neither ever quite excluding the other from their 
common channel. Let us watch the mutual actions of the 
two currents. During what we call our states of 

activity, the vivid manifestations predominate. We simul- 
taneously receive many and varied presentations — a crowd 
of visual impressions, sounds more or less numerous, resist- 
ances, tastes, odours, &c. ; some groups of them changing, 
and others temporarily fixed, but altering as we move ; and 
when we compare in its breadth and massiveness this hetero- 
geneous combination of vivid manifestations with the con- 
current combination of faint manifestations, these last sink 
into relative insignificance. They never wholly disappear 
however. Always along with the vivid manifestations, 
even in their greatest obtrusiveness, analysis discloses a 
thread of thoughts and interpretations constituted of the 
faint manifestations. Or if it be contended that the occur- 
rence of a deafening explosion or an intense pain may for a 
moment exclude every idea, it must yet be admitted that 
such breach of continuity can never be immediately known 
as occurring; since the act of knowing is impossible in the 
absence of ideas. On the other hand, after cer- 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 149 

tain vivid manifestations which we call the acts of closing 
the eyes and adjusting ourselves so as to enfeeble the 
vivid manifestations of pressure, sound, &c, the mani- 
festations of the faint order become relatively predominant. 
The ever-varying heterogeneous current of them, no longer 
obscured by the vivid current, grows more distinct, and 
seems almost to exclude the vivid current. But while what 
we call consciousness continues, the current of vivid mani- 
festations, however small the dimensions to which it is 
reduced, still continues: pressure and touch do not wholly 
disappear. It is only on lajDsing into the unconsciousness 
termed sleep, that manifestations of the vivid order cease 
to be distinguishable as such, and those of the faint order 
come to be mistaken for them. And even of this we remain 
unaware till the recurrence of manifestations of the vivid 
order on awaking: we can never infer that manifestations 
of the vivid order have been absent, until they are again 
present; and can therefore never directly know them to be 
absent. Thus, of the two concurrent compound 

series of manifestations, each preserves its continuity. 
As they flow side by side, each trenches on the other, 
but there never comes a moment at which it can be 
said that the one has, then and there, broken through the 
other. 

Besides this longitudinal cohesion there is a lateral cohe- 
sion, both of the vivid to the vivid and of the faint to the 
faint. The components of the vivid series are bound to- 
gether by ties of co-existence as well as by ties of succes- 
sion; and the components of the faint series are similarly 
bound together. Between the degrees of union in the two 
cases there are, however, marked and very significant dif- 
ferences. Let us observe them. Over an area 
occupying part of the so-called field of view, lights and 
shades and colours and outlines constitute a group to which, 
as the signs of an object, we give a certain name; and while 
they continue present, these united vivid manifestations 



150 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

remain inseparable. So, too, is it with co-existing groups 
of manifestations: each persists as a special combination; 
and most of them preserve unchanging relations with 
those around. Such of them as do not — such of them as 
are capable of what we call independent movements, never- 
theless show us a constant connexion between certain of 
the manifestations they include, along with a variable con- 
nexion of others. And though after certain vivid mani- 
festations known as a change in the conditions of percep- 
tion, there is a change in the proportions among the vivid 
manifestations constituting any group, their cohesion con- 
tinues — we do not succeed in detaching one or more of 
them from the rest. Turning to the faint mani- 

festations, we see that while there are lateral cohesions 
among them, these are much less extensive, and in most 
cases are by no means so rigorous. After closing my eyes, 
I can represent an object now standing in a certain place, 
as standing in some other place, or as absent. While I 
look at a blue vase, I cannot separate the vivid manifes- 
tation of blueness from the vivid manifestation of a 
particular shape ; but, in the absence of these vivid manifes- 
tations, I can separate the faint manifestation of the shape 
from the faint manifestation of blueness, and replace the 
last by a faint manifestation of redness. It is so through- 
out: the faint manifestations cling together to a certain ex- 
tent, but nevertheless most of them may be re-arranged with 
facility. Indeed none of the individual faint manifesta- 
tions cohere in the same indissoluble way as do the individ- 
ual vivid manifestations. Though along with a faint mani- 
festation of pressure there is always some faint manifesta- 
tion of extension, yet no particular faint manifestation of ex- 
tension is bound up with a particular faint manifestation 
of pressure. So that whereas in the vivid order the 

individual manifestations cohere indissolubly, usually in 
large groups, in the faint order the individual manifesta- 
tions none of them cohere indissolubly, and are most of 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 151 

them loosely aggregated: the only indissoluble cohesions 
among them being between certain of their generic forms. 

While the components of each current cohere with one 
another, they do not cohere at all strongly with those of 
the other current. Or, more correctly, we may say that the 
vivid current habitually flows on quite undisturbed by the 
faint current; and that the faint current, though often 
largely determined by the vivid, and always to some extent 
carried with it, may yet maintain a substantial independ- 
ence, letting the vivid current slide by. We will glance at 
the interactions of the two. The successive faint 

manifestations constituting thought, fail to modify in the 
slightest degree the vivid manifestations that present them- 
selves. Omitting a quite peculiar class of exceptions, here- 
after to be dealt with, the vivid manifestations, fixed and 
changing, are not directly affected by the faint. Those 
which I distinguish as components of a landscape, as surg- 
ings of the sea, as whistlings of the wind, as movements 
of vehicles and people, are absolutely uninfluenced by the 
accompanying faint manifestations which I distinguish as 
my ideas. On the other hand, the current of faint 

manifestations is always somewhat perturbed by the vivid. 
Frequently it consists mainly of faint manifestations which 
cling to the vivid ones, and are carried with them as they 
pass — memories and suggestions as we call them, which, 
joined with the vivid manifestations producing them, form 
almost the whole body of the manifestations. At other 
times, when, as we say, absorbed in thought, the disturb- 
ance of the faint current is but superficial. The vivid mani- 
festations drag after them such few faint manifestations 
only as constitute recognitions of them : to each impression 
adhere certain ideas which make up the interpretation of 
it as such or such. But there meanwhile flows on a main 
stream of faint manifestations wholly unrelated to the vivid 
manifestations — what we call a reverie, perhaps, or it may 
be a process of reasoning. And occasionally, during the 



152 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

state known as absence of mind, this current of faint mani- 
festations so far predominates that the vivid current scarce- 
ly affects it at all. Hence, these concurrent series 
of manifestations, each coherent with itself longitudinally 
and laterally, have but a partial coherence with one an- 
other. The vivid series is quite unmoved by its passing 
neighbour; and though the faint series is always to some 
extent moved by the adjacent vivid series, and is often 
carried bodily along with the vivid series, it may never- 
theless become in great measure separate. 

Yet another all-important differential characteristic has 
to be specified. The conditions under which these respec- 
tive orders of manifestations occur, are different; and the 
conditions of occurrence of each order belong to itself. 
Whenever the immediate antecedents of vivid manifesta- 
tions are traceable, they prove to be other vivid mani- 
festations; and though we cannot say that the ante- 
cedents of the faint manifestations always lie wholly 
among themselves, yet the essential ones lie wholly among 
themselves. These statements will need a good deal of ex- 
planation. Obviously, changes among any of the 
vivid manifestations we are contemplating — the motions 
and sounds and alterations of appearance, in what we call 
surrounding objects — are either changes that follow certain 
vivid manifestations, or changes of which the antecedents 
are unapparent. Some of the vivid manifestations, how- 
ever, occur only under certain conditions that seem to be of 
another order. Those which we know as colours and visi- 
ble forms presuppose open eyes. But what is the opening 
of the eyes, translated into the terms we are here using; 
Literally it is an occurrence of certain vivid manifestations. 
The preliminary idea of opening the eyes does, indeed, con- 
sist of faint manifestations, but the act of opening them 
consists of vivid manifestations. And the like is still more 
conspicuously the case with those movements of the eyes 
and the head which are followed by new groups of vivid 



THE DATA OP PHILOSOPHY. 153 

manifestations. Similarly with the antecedents to the vivid 
manifestations which we distinguish as those of touch and 
pressure. All the changeable ones have for their conditions 
of occurrence certain vivid manifestations which we know 
as sensations of muscular tension. It is true that the condi- 
tions to these conditions are manifestations of the faint order 
— those ideas of muscular actions which precede muscular 
actions. And we are here introduced to a complication 
arising from the fact that what is called the body, is present 
to us as a set of vivid manifestations connected with the 
faint manifestations in a special way — a way such that in 
it alone certain vivid manifestations are capable of being 
produced by faint manifestations. There must be named, 
too, the kindred exception furnished by the emotions — 
an exception which, however, serves to enforce the gen- 
eral proposition. For while it is true that the emotions are 
to be considered as a certain kind of vivid manifestations, 
and are yet capable of being produced by the faint mani- 
festations we call ideas; it is also true that because the 
conditions to their occurrence thus exist among the faint 
manifestations, we class them as belonging to the same gen- 
eral aggregate as the faint manifestations — do not class 
them with such other vivid manifestations as colours, 
sounds, pressures, smells, &c. But omitting these peculiar 
vivid manifestations which we know as muscular tensions 
and emotions, and which we habitually class apart, we may 
say of all the rest, that the conditions to their existence as 
vivid manifestations are manifestations belonging to their 
own class. In the parallel current we find a paral- 

lel truth. Though many manifestations of the faint order 
are partly caused by manifestations of the vivid order, 
which call up memories as we say, and suggest inferences; 
yet these results mainly depend on certain antecedents be- 
longing to the faint order. A cloud drifts across the sun, 
and may or may not produce an effect on the current of 
ideas: the inference that it is about to rain may arise, or 

13 



154 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

there may be a persistence in the previous train of thought 
■ — a difference obviously determined by conditions among 
the thoughts. Again, such power as a vivid manifesta- 
tion has of causing certain faint manifestations to arise, 
depends on the pre-existence of certain appropriate faint 
manifestations. If I have never heard a curlew, the cry 
which an unseen one makes, fails to produce an idea of the 
bird. And we have but to remember what various trains of 
reflection are aroused by the same sight, to see how essen- 
tially the occurrence of each faint manifestation depends on 
its relations to other faint manifestations that have gone 
before or that co-exist. 

Here we are introduced, lastly, to one of the most strik- 
ing, and perhaps the most important, of the differences be- 
tween those two orders of manifestations — a difference con- 
tinuous with that just pointed out, but one which may with 
advantage be separately insisted upon. The conditions of 
occurrence are not distinguished solely by the fact that each 
set, when identifiable, belongs to its own order of manifesta- 
tions; but they are further distinguished in a very signifi- 
cant way. Manifestations of the faint order have traceable 
antecedents; can be made to occur by establishing their 
conditions of occurrence; and can be suppressed by estab- 
lishing other conditions. But manifestations of the vivid 
order continually occur without previous presentation of 
their antecedents; and in many cases they persist or cease, 
under either known or unknown conditions, in such way as 
to show that their conditions are wholly beyond control. 
The impression distinguished as a flash of lightning, breaks 
across the current of our thoughts, absolutely without 
notice. The sounds from a band that strikes up in the 
street or from a crash of china in the next room, are not 
connected with any of the previously-present manifesta- 
tions, either of the faint or of the vivid order. Often 
these vivid manifestations, arising unexpectedly, persist in 
thrusting themselves across the current of the faint ones; 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 155 

which not only cannot directly affect them, but cannot 
even indirectly affect them. A wound produced by a 
violent blow from behind, is a vivid manifestation the con- 
ditions of occurrence of which were neither among the faint 
nor among the vivid manifestations; and the conditions to 
the persistence of which are bound up with the vivid mani- 
festations in some unmanifested way. So that whereas in 
the faint order, the conditions of occurrence are always 
among the pre-existing or co-existing manifestations; in 
the vivid order, the conditions of occurrence are often not 
present. 

Thus we find many salient characters in which mani- 
festations of the one order are like one another, and unlike 
those of the other order. Let us briefly re-enumerate these 
salient characters. Manifestations of the one order are 
vivid and those of the other are faint. Those of the one 
order are originals, while those of the other order are copies. 
The first form with one another a series, or heterogeneous 
current, that is never broken; and the second also form with 
one another a parallel series or current that is never broken : 
or, to speak strictly, no breakage of either is ever directly 
known. Those of the first order cohere with one another, 
not only longitudinally but also transversely; as do also 
those of the second order with one another. Between mani- 
festations of the first order the cohesions, both longitudinal 
and transverse, are indissoluble; but between manifesta- 
tions of the second order, these cohesions are most of them 
dissoluble with ease. While the members of each series or 
current are so coherent with one another that the current 
cannot be broken, the two currents, running side by side as 
thov do, have but little coherence — the great body of the 
vivid current is absolutely unmodifiable by the faint, and 
fche faint may become almost separate from the vivid. The 
conditions under which manifestations of either order oc- 
cur, themselves belong to that order; but whereas in the 
faint order, the conditions are always present, in the vivid 



156 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

order the conditions are often not present, but lie some- 
where outside of the series. Seven separate characters, 
then, mark off these two orders of manifestations from one 
another. 

§ 44. What is the meaning of this? The foregoing 
analysis was commenced in the belief that the proposition 
postulated by Philosophy, must affirm some ultimate classes 
of likenesses and unlikenesses, in which all other classes 
merge; and here we have found that all manifestations of 
the Unknowable are divisible into two such classes. AVhat 
is the division equivalent to? 

Obviously it corresponds to the division between object 
and subject. This profoundest of distinctions among the 
manifestations of the Unknowable, we recognize by group- 
ing them into self and not-self. These faint manifestations, 
forming a continuous whole differing from the other in the 
quantity, quality, cohesion, and conditions of existence of 
its parts, we call the ego • and these vivid manifestations, 
indissolubly bound together in relatively-immense masses, 
and having independent conditions of existence, we call the 
non-ego. Or rather, more truly — each order of manifesta- 
tions carries with it the irresistible implication of some 
power that manifests itself; and by the words ego and non- 
ego respectively, we mean the power that manifests itself in 
the faint forms, and the power that manifests itself in the 
vivid forms. 

As we here see, these consolidated conceptions thus anti- 
thetically named, do not originate in some inscrutable way ; 
but they have for their explanation the ultimate law of 
thought that is beyond appeal. The persistent conscious- 
ness of likeness or difference, is one which, by its very per- 
sistence, makes itself accepted; and one which transcends 
scepticism, since without it even doubt becomes impossible. 
And the primordial division of self from not-self, is a cumu- 
lative result of persistent consciousnesses of likenesses and 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 157 

differences among manifestations. Indeed, thought exists 
only through that kind of act which leads us, from moment 
to moment, to refer certain manifestations to the one class 
with which they have so many common attributes, and 
others to the other class with which they have common 
attributes equally numerous. And the myriad-fold repeti- 
tion of these classings, bringing about the myriad-fold asso- 
ciations of each manifestation with those of its own class, 
brings about this union among the members of each class, 
and this disunion of the two classes. 

Strictly speaking, this segregation of the manifestations 
and coalescence of them into two distinct wholes, is in 
great part spontaneous, and precedes all deliberate judg- 
ments; though it is endorsed by such judgments when they 
come to be made. For the manifestations of each order 
have not simply that kind of union implied by grouping 
them as individual objects of the same class; but, as we 
have seen, they have the much more intimate union implied 
by actual cohesion. This cohesive union exhibits itself 
before any conscious acts of classing take place. So that, 
in truth, these two contrasted orders of manifestations are 
substantially self-separated and self-consolidated. The 
members of each, by clinging to one another and parting 
from their opposites, themselves form these united wholes 
constituting object and subject. It is this self -union which 
gives to these wholes formed of them, their individualities 
as wholes, and that separateness from each other which 
transcends judgment; and judgment merely aids the pre- 
determined segregation by assigning to their respective 
classes, such manifestations as have not distinctly united 
themselves with the rest of their kind. 

One further perpetually-repeated act of judgment there 
is, indeed, which strengthens this fundamental antithesis, 
and gives a vast extension to one term of it. We continually 
learn that while the conditions of occurrence of faint mani- 
festations aro always to l>e found, the conditions of oc- 



158 ' THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

currence of vivid manifestations are often not to be found. 
"We also continually learn that vivid manifestations which, 
have no perceivable antecedents among the vivid manifesta- 
tions, are like certain preceding ones which had perceivable 
antecedents among the vivid manifestations. Joining these 
two experiences together, there results the irresistible con- 
ception that some vivid manifestations have conditions of 
occurrence existing out of the current of vivid manifesta- 
tions — existing as potential vivid manifestations capable of 
becoming actual. And so we are made vaguely conscious 
of an indefinitely-extended region of power or being, not 
merely separate from the current of faint manifestations 
constituting the ego, but lying beyond the current of vivid 
manifestations constituting the immediately-present portion 
of the non-ego. 

§ 45. In a very imperfect way, passing over objections 
and omitting needful explanations, I have thus, in the 
narrow space that could properly be devoted to it, indicated 
the essential nature and justification of that primordial 
proposition which Philosophy requires as a datum. I might, 
indeed, safely have assumed this ultimate truth; which 
Common Sense asserts, which every step in Science takes 
for granted, and which no metaphysician ever for a moment 
succeeded in expelling from consciousness. Setting out 
with the postulate that the manifestations of the Unknow- 
able fall into the two separate aggregates constituting the 
world of consciousness and the world beyond consciousness, 
I might have let the justification of this postulate depend on 
its subsequently-proved congruity with every result of ex- 
perience, direct and indirect. But as all that follows pro- 
ceeds upon this postulate, it seemed desirable briefly to indi- 
cate its warrant, with the view of shutting out criticisms that 
might else be made. It seemed desirable to show that this 
fundamental cognition is neither, as the idealist asserts, an 
illusion, nor as the sceptic thinks, of doubtful worth, nor as 



THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 159 

is held by the natural realist, an inexplicable intuition ; but 
that it is a legitimate deliverance of consciousness elaborat- 
ing its materials after the laws of its normal action. While, 
in order of time, the establishment of this distinction pre- 
cedes all reasoning; and while, running through our mental 
structure as it does, we are debarred from reasoning about 
it without taking for granted its existence; analysis never- 
theless enables us to justify the assertion of its existence, by 
showing that it is also the outcome of a classification based 
on accumulated likenesses and accumulated differences. In 
other words — Reasoning, which is itself but a formation of 
cohesions among manifestations, here strengthens, by the 
cohesion it forms, the cohesions which it finds already ex- 
isting. 

So much, then, for the data of Philosophy. In common 
with Religion, Philosophy assumes the primordial implica- 
tion of consciousness, which, as we saw in the last part, has 
the deepest of all foundations. It assumes the validity of a 
certain primordial process of consciousness, without which 
inference is impossible, and without which there cannot 
even be either affirmation or denial. And it assumes the 
validity of a certain primordial product of consciousness, 
which though it originates in an earlier process, is also, in 
one sense, a product of this process, since by this process 
it is tested and stamped as genuine. In brief, our postu- 
lates are: — an Unknowable Power; the existence of know- 
able likenesses and differences among the manifestations of 
that Power; and a resulting segregation of the manifes- 
tations into those of subject and object. 

Before proceeding with the substantial business of Phi- 
losophy — the complete unification of the knowledge par- 
tially unified by Science, a further preliminary is needed. 
The manifestations of the Unknowable, separated into the 
two divisions of self and not-self, are re-divisible into certain 
most general forms, the reality of which Science, as well as 
Common Sense, from moment to moment assumes. In the 



160 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 

chapter on " Ultimate Scientific Ideas/' it was shown that 
we know nothing of these forms, considered in themselves. 
As, nevertheless, we must continue to use the words signify- 
ing them, it is needful to say what interpretations are to be 
put on these words. 



CHAPTEE III. 

SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AJSTD FORCE. 

§ 46. That sceptical state of mind which the criticisms 
of Philosophy usually produce, is, in great measure, caused 
by the misinterpretation of words. A sense of universal illu- 
sion ordinarily follows the reading of metaphysics; and is 
strong in proportion as the argument has appeared con- 
clusive. This sense of universal illusion would probably 
never have arisen, had the terms used been always rightly 
construed. Unfortunately, these terms have by association 
acquired meanings that are quite different from those given 
to them in philosophical discussions; and the ordinary mean- 
ings being unavoidably suggested, there results more or less 
of that dream-like realism which is so incongruous with our 
instinctive convictions. The word phenomenon and its 
equivalent word appearance, are in great part to blame for 
this. In ordinary speech, these are uniformly employed in 
reference to visual perceptions. Habit, almost, if not quite, 
disables us from thinking of appearance except as something 
seen; and though phenome?ionkas a more generalized mean- 
ing, yet we cannot rid it of associations with appearance, 
which is its verbal equivalent. When, therefore, Philoso- 
phy proves that our knowledge of the external world can be 
but phenomenal — when it concludes that the things of 
which we are conscious are appearances; it inevitably 
arouses in us the notion of an Qlusiveness like that to which 
our visual perceptions arc so liable in comparison with our 

1G1 



162 SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 

tactual perceptions. Good pictures show us that the aspects 
of things may he very nearly simulated by colours on can- 
vas. The looking-glass still more distinctly proves how de- 
ceptive is sight when unverified by touch. And the fre- 
quent cases in which we misinterpret the impressions made 
on our eyes, and think we see something which we do not 
see, further shake our faith in vision. So that the implica- 
tion of uncertainty has infected the very word appearance* 
Hence, Philosophy, by giving it an extended meaning, 
leads us to think of all our senses as deceiving us in the 
same way that the eyes do; and so makes us feel ourselves 
floating in a world of phantasms. Had phenomenon and ap- 
pearance no such misleading associations, little, if any, of 
this mental confusion would result. Or did we in place of 
them use the term effect, which is equally applicable to all 
impressions produced on consciousness through any of the 
senses, and which carries with it in thought the necessary 
correlative cause, with which it is equally real, we should 
be in little danger of falling into the insanities of idealism. 
Such danger as there might still remain, would disap- 
pear on making a further verbal correction. At present, the 
confusion resulting from the above misinterpretation, is 
made greater by an antithetical misinterpretation. We 
increase the seeming unreality of that phenomenal existence 
which we can alone know, by contrasting it with a noumenal 
existence which we imagine would, if we could know it, 
be more truly real to us. But we delude ourselves with a 
verbal fiction. What is the meaning of the word 

real? This is the question which underlies every metaphys- 
ical inquiry; and the neglect of it is the remaining cause 
of the chronic antagonisms of metaphysicians. In the in- 
terpretation put on the word real, the discussions of philoso- 
phy retain one element of the vulgar conception of things, 
while they reject all its other elements; and create confu- 
sion by the inconsistency. The peasant, on contemplat- 
ing an object, does not regard that which he contemplates 



SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 163 

as something in himself, but believes the thing of which he 
is conscious to be the external object — imagines that his 
consciousness extends to the very place where the object 
lies: to him the appearance and the reality are one and the 
same thing. The metaphysician, however, is convinced 
that consciousness cannot embrace the reality, but only 
the appearance of it; and so he transfers the appearance 
into consciousness and leaves the reality outside. This real- 
ity left outside of consciousness, he continues to think of 
much in the same way as the ignorant man thinks of the 
appearance. Though the reality is asserted to be out of con- 
sciousness, yet the realness ascribed to it is constantly spoken 
of as though it were a knowledge possessed apart from con- 
sciousness. It seems to be forgotten that the conception of 
reality can be nothing more than some mode of conscious- 
ness ; and that the question to be considered is — What is the 
relation between this mode and other modes? 

By reality we mean persistence in consciousness : a per- 
sistence that is either unconditional, as our consciousness of 
space, or that is conditional, as our consciousness of a body 
while grasping it. The real, as we conceive it, is distin- 
guished solely by the test of persistence; for by this test we 
separate it from what we call the unreal. Between a person 
standing before us, and the idea of such a person, we dis- 
criminate by our ability to expel the idea from conscious- 
ness, and our inability, while looking at him, to expel the 
] lerson from consciousness. And when in doubt as to the va- 
lidity or illusiveness of some impression made upon us in the 
dusk, we settle the matter by observing whether the impres- 
sion persists on closer observation; and we predicate reality 
if the persistence is complete. How truly persistence 

is what we mean by reality, is shown in the fact that when, 
after criticism has proved that the real as we are conscious 
of it is not the objectively real, the indefinite notion which 
we form of (lie objectively real, is of something which per- 
absolutely, under all changes of mode, form, or a])- 



164 SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 

pearance. And the fact that we cannot form even an 
indefinite notion of the absolutely real, except as the abso- 
lutely persistent, clearly implies that persistence is our ulti- 
mate test of the real as present to consciousness. 

Reality then, as we think it, being nothing more than 
persistence in consciousness, the result must be the same to 
us whether that which we perceive be the Unknowable 
itself, or an effect invariably wrought on us by the Un- 
knowable. If, under constant conditions furnished by our 
constitutions, some Power of which the nature is beyond 
conception, always produces some mode of consciousness — 
if this mode of consciousness is as persistent as would be 
this Power were it in consciousness; the reality will be to 
consciousness as complete in the one case as in the other. 
Were Unconditioned Being itself present in thought, it 
could but be persistent; and if, instead, there is present 
Being conditioned by the forms of thought, but no less 
persistent, it must be to us no less real. 

Hence there may be drawn these conclusions: — First, 
that we have an indefinite consciousness of an absolute real- 
ity transcending relations, which is produced by the absolute 
persistence in us of something which survives all changes of 
relation. Second, that we have a definite consciousness of 
relative reality, which unceasingly persists in us under one 
or other of its forms, and under each form so long as the con- 
ditions of presentation are fulfilled; and that the relative 
reality, being thus continuously persistent in us, is as real to 
us as would be the absolute reality could it be immediately 
known. Third, that thought being possible only under rela- 
tion, the relative reality can be conceived as such only in 
connexion with an absolute reality; and the connexion 
between the two being absolutely persistent in our con- 
sciousness, is real in the same sense as the terms it unites are 
real. 

Thus then we may resume, with entire confidence, those 
realistic conceptions which philosophy at first sight seems to 



SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 165 

dissipate. Though reality under the forms of our conscious- 
ness, is but a conditioned effect of the absolute reality, yet 
this conditioned effect standing in indissoluble relation with 
its unconditioned cause, and being equally persistent with 
it so long as the conditions persist, is, to the consciousness 
supplying those conditions, equally real. The persistent 
impressions being the persistent results of a persistent 
cause, are for practical purposes the same to us as the cause 
itself; and may be habitually dealt with as its equivalents. 
Somewhat in the same way that our visual perceptions, 
though merely symbols found to be the equivalents of tac- 
tual perceptions, are yet so identified with those tactual 
perceptions that we actually appear to see the solidity and 
hardness which we do but infer, and thus conceive as objects 
what are only the signs of objects; so, on a higher stage, 
do we deal with these relative realities as though they were 
absolutes instead of effects of the absolute. And we may 
legitimately continue so to deal with them as long as the con- 
clusions to which they help us are understood as relative 
realities and not absolute ones. 

This general conclusion it now remains to interpret 
specifically, in its application to each of our ultimate scien- 
tific ideas. 

§ 47.* We think in relations. This is truly the form of 
all thought ; and if there are any other forms, they must be 
derived from this. We have seen (Chap. iii. Part I.) that 
the several ultimate modes of being cannot be known or con- 
ceived as they exist in themselves; that is, out of relation to 
our consciousness. We have seen, by analyzing the pro- 
duct of thought, (% 23,) that it always consists of relations; 
and cannot include anything beyond the most general of 
these. On analyzing the process of thought, we found that 

* For the psychological conclusions briefly Bet forth in (his and the threo 
sections following it, the justification will be found in the writer's Principles 
of Psychology. 



166 SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 

cognition of the Absolute was impossible, because it pre- 
sented neither relation, nor its elements — difference and 
likeness. Further, we found that not only Intelligence but 
Life itself, consists in the establishment of internal relations 
in correspondence with external relations. And lastly, 
it was shown that though by the relativity of our thought 
we are eternally debarred from knowing or conceiving Ab- 
solute Being; yet that this very relativity of our thought, 
necessitates that vague consciousness of Absolute Being 
which no mental effort can suppress. That relation is the 
universal form of thought, is thus a truth which all kinds 
of demonstration unite in proving. 

By the transcendentalists, certain other phenomena of 
consciousness are regarded as forms of thought. Presuming 
that relation would be admitted by them to be a universal 
mental form, they would class with it two others as also uni- 
versal. Were their hypothesis otherwise tenable however, it 
must still be rejected if such alleged further forms are inter- 
pretable as generated by the primary form. If we think in 
relations, and if relations have certain universal forms, it is 
manifest that such universal forms of relations will become 
universal forms of our consciousness. And if these further 
universal forms are thus explicable, it is superfluous, and 
therefore unphilosophical, to assign them an independent 
origin. Now relations are of two orders — relations 

of sequence, and relations of co-existence ; of which the one 
is original and the other derivative. The relation of se- 
quence is given in every change of consciousness. The rela- 
tion of co-existence, which cannot be originally given in a 
consciousness of which the states are serial, becomes distin- 
guished only when it is found that certain relations of 
sequence have their terms presented in consciousness in 
either order with equal facility; while the others are pre- 
sented only in one order. Relations of which the terms are 
not reversible, become recognized as sequences proper; 
while relations of which the terms occur indifferently in 



SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 167 

both directions, become recognized as co-existences. End- 
less experiences, which from, moment to moment present 
both orders of these relations, render the distinction between 
them perfectly definite; and at the same time generate an 
abstract conception of each. The abstract of all sequences 
is Time. The abstract of all co-existences is Space. From 
the fact that in thought, Time is inseparable from sequence, 
and Space from co-existence, Ave do not here infer that Time 
and Space are original conditions of consciousness under 
which sequences and co-existences are known; but we infer 
that our conceptions of Time and Space are gener- 
ated, as other abstracts are generated from other con- 
cretes: the only difference being, that the organiza- 
tion of experiences has, in these cases, been going on 
throughout the entire evolution of intelligence. 

This synthesis is confirmed by analysis. Our conscious- 
ness of Space is a consciousness of co-existent positions. 
Any limited portion of space can be conceived only by 
representing its limits as co-existing in certain relative posi- 
tions; and each of its imagined boundaries, be it line or 
plane, can be thought of in no other way than as made up of 
co-existent positions in close proximity. And since a posi- 
tion is not an entity — since the congeries of positions which 
constitute any conceived portion of space, and mark its 
bounds, are not sensible existences; it follows that the 
co-existent positions which make up our consciousness of 
Space, are not co-existences in the full sense of the word 
(which implies realities as their terms), but are the blank 
forms of co-existences, left behind when the realities are 
absent; that is, are the abstracts of co-existences. The 

experiences out of which, during the evolution of intel- 
ligence, this abstract of all co-existences has been generated, 
are experiences of individual positions as ascertained by 
touch; and each of such experiences involves the resistance 
of an object touched, and the muscular tension which incis- 
ures this resistance. By countless unlike muscular adjust- 



168 SPACE, TIME, MATTRE, MOTION, AND FORCE. 

ments, involving unlike muscular tensions, different resist- 
ing positions are disclosed; and these, as they can be experi- 
enced in one order as readily as another, we regard as co-ex- 
isting. But since, under other circumstances, the same 
muscular adjustments do not produce contact with resisting 
positions, there result the same states of consciousness, minus 
the resistances— blank forms of co-existence from which the 
co-existent objects before experienced are absent. And 
from a building up of these, too elaborate to be here de- 
tailed, results that abstract of all relations of co-existence 
which we call Space. It remains only to point 

out, as a thing which we must not forget, that the experi- 
ences from which the consciousness of Space arises, are ex- 
periences of force. A certain correlation of the muscular 
forces we ourselves exercise, is the index of each position 
as originally disclosed to us ; and the resistance which makes 
us aware of something existing in that position, is an equiva- 
lent of the pressure we consciously exert. Thus, experi- 
ences of forces variously correlated, are those from which 
our consciousness of Space is abstracted. 

That which we know as Space being thus shown, alike by 
its genesis and definition, to be purely relative, what are we 
to say of that which causes it? Is there an absolute Space 
which relative Space in some sort represents ? Is Space in it- 
self a form or condition of absolute existence, producing in 
our minds a corresponding form or condition of relative ex- 
istence? These are unanswerable questions. Our concep- 
tion of Space is produced by some mode of the Unknowable ; 
and the complete unchangeableness of our conception of it 
simply implies a complete uniformity in the effects wrought 
by this mode of the Unknowable upon us. But therefore to 
call it a necessary mode of the Unknowable, is illegitimate. 
All we can assert is, that Space is a relative reality ; that our 
consciousness of this unchanging relative reality implies 
an absolute reality equally unchanging in so far as we are 
concerned; and that the relative reality may be unhesitat- 



SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 169 

ingly accepted in thought as a valid basis for our reason- 
ings ; which, when rightly carried on, will bring us to truths 
that have a like relative reality — the only truths which con- 
cern us or can possibly be known to us. 

Concerning Time, relative and absolute, a parallel argu- 
ment leads to parallel conclusions. These are too obvious to 
need specifying in detail. 

§ 48. Our conception of Matter, reduced to its simplest 
shape, is that of co-existent positions that offer resistance ; as 
contrasted with our conception of Space, in which the co- 
existent positions offer no resistance. We think of Body as 
bounded by surfaces that resist; and as made up through- 
out of parts that resist. Mentally abstract the co-existent 
resistances, and the consciousness of Body disappears; leav- 
ing behind it the consciousness of Space. And since the 
group of co-existing resistent positions constituting a por- 
tion of matter, is uniformly capable of giving us impressions 
of resistance in combination with various muscular adjust- 
ments, according as we touch its near, its remote, its right, 
or its left side; it results that as different muscular adjust- 
ments habitually indicate different co-existences, we are 
obliged to conceive every portion of matter as containing 
more than one resistent position — that is, as occupying 
Space. Hence the necessity we are under of representing 
to ourselves the ultimate elements of Matter as being at 
once extended and resistent: this being the universal form 
of our sensible experiences of Matter, becomes the form 
which our conception of it cannot transcend, however 
minute the fragments which imaginary subdivisions pro- 
duce. Of these two inseparable elements, the resist- 
ance is primary, and the extension secondary. Occupied ex- 
tension, or Body, being distinguished in consciousness from 
unoccupied extension, or Space, by its resistance, this attri- 
bute must clearly bave precedence in the genesis of the 
idea. Such a conclusion is, indeed, an obvious corollary 



170 SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 

from that at which we arrived in the foregoing section. If, 
as was there contended, our consciousness of Space is a pro- 
duct of accumulated experiences, partly our own but chiefly 
ancestral — if, as was pointed out, the experiences from 
which our consciousness of Space is abstracted, can be re- 
ceived only through impressions of resistance made upon 
the organism; the necessary inference is, that experiences 
of resistance being those from which the conception of 
Space is generated, the resistance-attribute of Matter must 
be regarded as primordial and the space-attribute as de- 
rivative. Whence it becomes manifest that our ex- 
perience of force, is that out of which the idea of Matter is 
built. Matter as opposing our muscular energies, being im- 
mediately present to consciousness in terms of force ; and its 
occupancy of Space being known by an abstract of experi- 
ences originally given in terms of force; it follows that 
forces, standing in certain correlations, form the whole con- 
tent of our idea of Matter. 

Such being our cognition of the relative reality, what are 
we to say of the absolute reality? We can only say that it 
is some mode of the Unknowable, related to the Matter we 
know, as cause to effect. The relativity of our cognition of 
Matter is shown alike by the above analysis, and by the con- 
tradictions which are evolved when we deal with the cogni- 
tion as an absolute one (§ 16). But, as we have lately seen, 
though known to us only under relation, Matter is as real in 
the true sense of that word, as it would be could we know it 
out of relation; and further, the relative reality which we 
know as Matter, is necessarily represented to the mind as 
standing in a persistent or real relation to the absolute real- 
ity. We may therefore deliver ourselves over with- 
out hesitation, to those terms of thought which experience 
has organized in us. We need not in our physical, chemical, 
or other researches, refrain from dealing with Matter as 
made up of extended and resistent atoms; for this concep- 
tion, necessarily resulting from our experiences of Matter, 



SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 171 

is not less legitimate than the conception of aggregate 
masses as extended and resistent. The atomic hypothesis, 
as well as the kindred hypothesis of an all-pervading ether 
consisting of molecules, is simply a necessary development 
of those universal forms which the actions of the Unknow- 
able have wrought in us. The conclusions logically worked 
out by the aid of these hypotheses, are sure to be in harmony 
with all others which these same forms involve, and will 
have a relative truth that is equally complete. 

§ 49. The conception of Motion as presented or repre- 
sented in the developed consciousness, involves the concep- 
tions of Space, of Time, and of Matter. A something that 
moves; a series of positions occupied in succession; and a 
group of co-existent positions united in thought with the suc- 
cessive ones — these are the constituents of the idea. And 
since, as we have seen, these are severally elaborated from 
experiences of force, as given in certain correlations, it fol- 
lows that from a further synthesis of such experiences, the 
idea of Motion is also elaborated. A certain other element 
in the idea, which is in truth its fundamental element, 
(namely, the necessity which the moving body is under 
to go on changing its position), results immediately from the 
earliest experiences of force. Movements of different parts 
of the organism in relation to each other, are the first pre- 
sented in consciousness. These, produced by the action of 
the muscles, necessitate reactions upon consciousness in the 
shape of sensations of muscular tension. Consequently, each 
stretching-out or drawing-in of a limb, is originally known 
as a series of mnscnlar tensions, varying in intensity as the 
position of the limb changes. And this rudimentary con- 
sciousness of Motion, consisting of serial impressions of 
force, becomes inseparably united with the consciousness 
of Space and Time as fast as these are abstracted from fur- 
ther impressions of force. Or rather, oul of this primitive 
conception of Motion, the adult conception of it is developed 



172 SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 

simultaneously with the development of the conceptions 
of Space and Time : all three being evolved from the more 
multiplied and varied impressions of muscular tension and 
objective resistance. Motion, as we know it, is thus trace- 
able, in common with the other ultimate scientific ideas, to 
experiences of force. 

That this relative reality answers to some absolute real- 
ity, it is needful only for form's sake to assert. What has 
been said above, respecting the Unknown Cause which pro- 
duces in us the effects called Matter, Space, and Time, will 
apply, on simply changing the terms, to Motion. 

§ 50. We come down then finally to Force, as the ulti- 
mate of ultimates. Though Space, Time, Matter, and Mo- 
tion, are apparently all necessary data of intelligence, yet a 
psychological analysis (here indicated only in rude outline) 
shows us that these are either built up of, or abstracted from, 
experiences of Force. Matter and Motion, as we know 
them, are differently conditioned manifestations of Force. 
Space and Time, as we know them, are disclosed along with 
these different manifestations of Force as the conditions 
under which they are presented. Matter and Motion are 
concretes built up from the contents of various mental 
relations; while Space and Time are abstracts of \h.e forms 
of these various relations. Deeper down than these, how- 
ever, are the primordial experiences of Force, which, as 
occurring in consciousness in different combinations, sup- 
ply at once the materials whence the forms of relations are 
generalized, and the related objects built up. A single 
impression of force is manifestly receivable by a sentient 
being devoid of mental forms: grant but sensibility, with 
no established power of thought, and a force producing 
some nervous change, will still be presentable at the sup- 
posed seat of sensation. Though no single impression of 
force so received, could itself produce consciousness (which 
implies relations between different states), yet a multiplica- 



SPACE,. TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 1^3 

tion of suck impressions, differing in kind and degree, 
would give tke materials for the establiskment of rela- 
tions, tkat is, of tkougkt. And if suck relations differed 
in tkeir forms as well as in tkeir contents, tke impressions of 
suck forms would be organized simultaneously witk tke 
impressions they contained. Thus all otker modes of con- 
sciousness are derivable from experiences of Force; but 
experiences of Force are not derivable from anything else. 
Indeed, it needs but to remember tkat consciousness consists 
of ckanges, to see tkat tke ultimate datum of consciousness 
must be tkat of wkick ckange is tke manifestation ; and tkat 
tkus tke force by wkick we ourselves produce ckanges, and 
wkick serves to symbolize tke cause of ckanges in general, 
is tke final disclosure of analysis. 

It is a truism to say tkat tke nature of tkis undecom- 
posable element of our knowledge is inscrutable. If, to use 
an algebraic illustration, we represent Matter, Motion, and 
Force, by tke symbols a?, y, and z / tken, we may ascertain 
tke values of x and y in terms of z / but, tke value of z can 
never be found : z is tke unknown quantity wkick must for 
ever remain unknown ; for tke obvious reason tkat tkere is 
notking in wkick its value can be expressed. It is witkin 
tke possible reack of our intelligence to go on simplifying 
tke equations of all pkenomena, until tke complex symbols 
which formulate tkem are reduced to certain functions of 
tkis ultimate symbol; but wlien we have done tkis, we have 
reached tkat limit wkick eternally divides science from 
nescience. 

Tkat tliis un decomposable mode of consciousness into 
which all other modes may be decomposed, cannot be itself 
tke Power manifested to ns through phenomena, has been 
already proved (§ 18). We saw that to assume an identity 
of nature between flic cause of changes as it absolutely ex- 
ists, and that cause of change of which we arc conscious 
in our own muscular efforts, betrays us into alternative im- 
possibilities of thought. Force, as we know it, can be re- 



174 SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FOECE. 

garded only as a certain conditioned effect of the Uncondi- 
tioned Cause — as the relative reality indicating to us an 
Absolute Reality by which it is immediately produced. 
And here, indeed, we see even more clearly than before, 
how inevitable is that transfigured realism to which sceptical 
criticism finally brings us round. Getting rid of all compli- 
cations, and contemplating pure Force, we are irresistibly 
compelled by the relativity of our thought, to vaguely con- 
ceive some unknown force as the correlative of the known 
force. Noumenon and phenomenon are here presented in 
their primordial relation as two sides of the same change, 
of which we are obliged to regard the last as no less real 
than the first. 

§ 51. In closing this exposition of the derivative data 
needed by Philosophy as the unifier of Science, we may 
properly glance at their relations to the primordial data, set 
forth in the last chapter. 

An Unknown Cause of the known effects which we call 
phenomena, likenesses and differences among these known 
effects, and a segregation of the effects into subject and 
object — these are the postulates without which we cannot 
think. Within each of the segregated masses of manifesta- 
tions, there are likenesses and differences involving sec- 
ondary segregations, which have also become indispensable 
postulates. The vivid manifestations constituting the non- 
ego do not simply cohere, but their cohesions have certain 
invariable modes; and among the faint manifestations con- 
stituting the ego, which are products of the vivid, there 
exist corresponding modes of cohesion. These modes of co- 
hesion under which manifestations are invariably presented, 
and therefore invariably represented, we call, when contem- 
plated apart, Space and Time, and when contemplated along 
with the manifestations themselves, Matter and Motion. 
The ultimate natures of these modes are as unknown as is 
the ultimate nature of that which is manifested. But just 



SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE, 175 

the same warrant which we have for asserting that subject 
and object coexist, we have for asserting that the vivid 
manifestations we call objective, exist under certain con- 
stant conditions, that are symbolized by these constant con- 
ditions among the manifestations we call subjective. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER. 

§52. Not because the truth is unfamiliar, is it needful 
here to say something concerning the indestructibility of 
Matter; but partly because the symmetry of our argument 
demands the enunciation of this truth, and partly because 
the evidence on which it is accepted requires examination. 
Could it be shown, or could it with any rationality be even 
supposed, that Matter, either in its aggregates or in its 
units, ever became non-existent, there would be need either 
to ascertain under what conditions it became non-existent, 
or else to confess that Science and Philosophy are impos- 
sible. For if, instead of having to deal with fixed quantities 
and weights, we had to deal with quantities and weights 
which were apt, wholly or in part, to be annihilated, there 
would be introduced an incalculable element, fatal to all 
positive conclusions. Clearly, therefore, the proposition 
that matter is indestructible must be deliberately consid- 
ered. 

So far from being admitted as a self-evident truth, this 
would, in primitive times, have been rejected as a self-evi- 
dent error. There was once universally current, a notion 
that things could vanish into absolute nothing, or arise out of 
absolute nothing. If we analyze early superstitions, or that 
faith in magic which was general in later times and even 
still survives among the uncultured, we find one of its postu- 
lates to be, that by some potent spell Matter can be called 

out of non-entity, and can be made non-existent. If men did 

176 



THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER. 1?? 

not believe this in the strict sense of the word (which would 
imply that the process of creation or annihilation was clearly 
represented in consciousness), they still believed that they 
believed it; and how nearly, in their confused thoughts, the 
one was equivalent to the other, is shown by their conduct. 
Xor, indeed, have dark ages and inferior minds alone be- 
trayed this belief. The current theology, in its teachings 
respecting the beginning and end of the world, is clearly 
pervaded by it; and it may be even questioned whether 
Shakespeare, in his poetical anticipation of a time when 
all things shall disappear and " leave not a wrack behind," 
was not under its influence. The gradual accumula- 

tion of experiences, however, and still more the organization 
of experiences, has tended slowly to reverse this conviction; 
until now, the doctrine that Matter is indestructible has be- 
come a commonplace. All the apparent proofs that some- 
thing can come out of nothing, a wider knowledge has one 
by one cancelled. The comet that is suddenly discovered 
in the heavens and nightly waxes larger, is proved not to 
be a newly-created body, but a body that was until lately 
beyond the range of vision. The cloud which in the course 
of a few minutes forms in the sky, consists not of substance 
that has just begun to be, but of substance that previously 
existed in a more diffused and transparent form. And 
similarly with a crystal or precipitate in relation to the fluid 
depositing it. Conversely, the seeming annihilations of 
Matter turn out, on closer observation, to be only changes of 
state. It is found that the evaporated water, though it has 
become invisible, may be brought by condensation to its 
original shape. The discharged fowling-piece gives evi- 
dence that though the gunpowder has disappeared, there 
have appeared in place of it certain gases, which, in assuming 
a larger volume, have caused the explosion. Not, 

however, until the rise of quantitative chemistry, could the 
conclusion suggested by Buch experiences be harmonized 
with all the facts. When, having ascertained not only the 



178 THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER. ' 

combinations formed by various substances, but also the 
proportions in which they combine, chemists were enabled 
to account for the matter that had made its appearance or 
become invisible, scepticism was dissipated. And of the 
general conclusion thus reached, the exact analyses daily 
made, in which the same portion of matter is pursued 
through numerous disguises and finally separated, furnish 
never-ceasing confirmations. 

Such has become the effect of this specific evidence, 
joined to that general evidence which the continued exist- 
ence of familiar objects unceasingly gives us, that the Inde- 
structibility of Matter is now held by many to be a truth 
of which the negation is inconceivable. 

§ 53. This last fact naturally raises the question, 
whether we have any higher warrant for this fundamental 
belief than the warrant of conscious induction. Before 
showing that we have a higher warrant, some explanations 
are needful. 

The consciousness of logical necessity, is the conscious- 
ness that a certain conclusion is implicitly contained in cer- 
tain premises explicitly stated. If, contrasting a young 
child and an adult, we see that this consciousness of logical 
necessity, absent from the one is present in the other, we 
are taught that there is a growing up to the recognition of 
certain necessary truths, merely by the unfolding of the 
inherited intellectual forms and faculties. 

To state the case more specifically: — Before a truth 
can be known as necessary, two conditions must be fulfilled. 
There must be a mental structure capable of grasping the 
terms of the proposition and the relation alleged between 
them; and there must be such definite and deliberate men- 
tal representation of these terms, as makes possible a clear 
consciousness of this relation. Non-fulfilment of either 
condition may cause non-recognition of the necessity of the 
truth. Let us take cases. 



THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER. 179 

The savage who cannot count the fingers on one hand, 
can frame no definite thought answering to the statement 
.that 7 and 5 are 12; still less can he frame the conscious- 
ness that no other total is possible. 

The boy adding up figures inattentively, says to himself 
that 7 and 5 are 11; and may repeatedly bring out a wrong 
result by repeatedly making this error. 

Neither the non-recognition of the truth that 7 and 5 
are 12, which in the savage results from undeveloped mental 
structure, nor the assertion, due to the boy's careless mental 
action, that they make 11, leads us to doubt the necessity of 
the relation between these two separately-existing numbers 
and the sum they make when existing together. INTor does 
failure from either cause to apprehend the necessity of this 
relation, make us hesitate to say that when its terms are dis- 
tinctly represented in thought, its necessity will be seen; 
and that, apart from any multiplied experiences, this neces- 
sity becomes cognizable when structures and functions are 
so far developed that groups of 7 and 5 and 12 can be in- 
tellectually grasped. 

Manifestly, then, there is a recognition of necessary 
truths, as such, which accompanies mental evolution. Along 
with acquirement of more complex faculty and more vivid 
imagination, there comes a power of perceiving to be neces- 
sary truths, what were before not recognized as truths at all. 
And there are ascending gradations in these recognitions. 
A boy who has intelligence enough to see that things 
which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, 
may be unable to see that ratios which are severally equal 
to certain other ratios that are unequal to each other, are 
themselves unequal; though to a more-developed mind this 
last axiom is no less obviously necessary than the first. 

All this which holds of logical and mathematical truths, 
holds, with change of terms, of physical truths. There arc 
necessary truths in Physics for the apprehension of which, 
also, a developed and disciplined intelligence is required; 



180 THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OP MATTER. 

and before such intelligence arises, not only may there be 
failure to apprehend the necessity of them, but there may 
.be vague beliefs in their contraries. Up to comparatively- 
recent times, all mankind were in this state of incapacity 
with respect to physical axioms; and the mass of mankind 
.are so still. Various popular notions betray inability to 
form clear ideas of forces and their relations, or careless- 
ness in thinking, or both. Effects are expected without 
causes of fit kinds; or effects extremely disproportionate to 
causes are looked for; or causes are supposed to end without 
effects.* But though many are incapable of grasping phys- 
ical axioms, it no more follows that physical axioms are 
not knowable d priori by a developed intelligence, than it 
follows that logical relations are not necessary, because un- 
developed intellects cannot perceive their necessity. 

It is thus with the notions which have been current 
respecting the creation and annihilation of Matter. In the 
first place, there has been an habitual confounding of two 
radically-different things — disappearance of Matter from 
that place where it was lately perceived, and passage of 
Matter from existence into non-existence. Only when 
there is reached a power of discrimination beyond that pos- 
sessed by the uncultured, is there an avoidance of the con- 
fusion between vanishing from the range of perception, and 
vanishing out of space altogether; and until this confusion 
is avoided, the belief that Matter can be annihilated readily 

* I knew a lady who contended that a dress folded up tightly, weighed 
more than when loosely folded up ; and who, under this belief, had her trunks 
made large that she might diminish the charge for freight ! Another whom I 
know, ascribes the feeling of lightness which accompanies vigour, to actual 
decrease of weight ; believes that by stepping gently, she can press less upon 
the ground ; and, when cross-questioned, asserts that, if placed in scales, she 
can make herself lighter by an act of will ! Various popular notions betray 
like states of mind — show, in the undisciplined, such inability to form ideas 
of forces and their relations, or such randomness in thinking, or both, as in- 
capacitates them for grasping physical axioms, and makes them harbour 
numerous delusions respecting physical actions. 



THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER. 181 

obtains currency. In the second place, the currency of this 
belief continues so long as there is not such power of intro- 
spection that it can be seen what happens when the attempt 
is made to annihilate Matter in thought. But when, during 
mental evolution, the vague ideas arising in a nervous 
structure imperfectly organized, are replaced by the clear 
ideas arising in a definite nervous structure; this definite 
structure, moulded by experience into correspondence with 
external phenomena, makes necessary in thought the rela- 
tions answering to absolute uniformities in things. Hence, 
among others, the conception of the Indestructibility of 
Matter. 

For careful self -analysis shows this to be a datum of 
consciousness. Conceive the space before you to be cleared 
of all bodies save one. Now imagine the remaining one not 
to be removed from its place, but to lapse into nothing 
while standing in that place. You fail. The space which 
was solid you cannot conceive becoming empty, save by 
transfer of that which made it solid. What 

is termed the ultimate incomprehensibility of Matter, is an 
admitted law of thought. However small the bulk to 
which we conceive a piece of matter reduced, it is impos- 
sible to conceive it reduced into nothing. While we can 
represent to ourselves the parts of the matter as approxi- 
mated, we cannot represent to ourselves the quantity of 
matter as made less. To do this would be to imagine some 
of the constituent parts compressed into nothing; which 
is no more possible than to imagine compression of the 
whole into nothing. Our inability to conceive 

Matter becoming non-existent, is immediately consequent 
on the nature of thought. Thought consists in the estab- 
lishment of relations. There can be no relation established, 
and therefore uo thought framed, when one of the related 
terms is absent from consciousness. Hence it is impossible 
to think of something becoming nothing, for the same 
reason that it is impossible to think of nothing becoming 



182 THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER. 

something — the reason, namely, that nothing cannot be- 
come an object of consciousness. The annihilation of Mat- 
ter is unthinkable for the same reason that the creation of 
Matter is unthinkable. 

It must be added that no experimental verification of the 
truth that Matter is indestructible, is possible without a 
tacit assumption of it. For all such verification implies 
weighing, and weighing implies that the matter forming 
the weight remains the same. In other words, the proof 
that certain matter dealt with in certain ways is unchanged 
in quantity, depends on the assumption that other matter, 
otherwise dealt with, is unchanged in quantity. 

§ 54. That, however, which it most concerns us here 
to observe, is the nature of the perceptions by which the 
permanence of Matter is perpetually illustrated to us. 
These perceptions, under all their forms, amount simply to 
this — that the force which a given quantity of matter exer- 
cises, remains always the same. This is the proof on which 
common sense and exact science alike rely. When, 

for example, an object known to have existed years since is 
said to exist still, by one who yesterday saw it, his assertion 
amounts to this — that an object which in past time wrought 
on his consciousness a certain group of changes, still exists, 
because a like group of changes has been again wrought on 
his consciousness: the continuance of the power thus to 
impress him, he holds to prove the continuance of the ob- 
ject. Even more clearly do we see that force is our ulti- 
mate measure of Matter, in those cases where the shape 
of the Matter has been changed. A piece of gold given to 
an artizan to be worked into an ornament, and which when 
brought back appears to be less, is placed in the scales; 
and if it balances a much smaller weight than it did in its 
rough state, we infer that much has been lost either in 
manipulation or by direct abstraction. Here the obvious 
postulate is, that the quantity of Matter is finally de- 



THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF MATTER. 183 

terminable by the quantity of gravitative force it mani- 
fests. And this is the kind of evidence on which 
Science bases its alleged induction that Matter is inde- 
structible. Whenever a piece of substance lately visible 
and tangible, has been reduced to an invisible, intangible 
state, but is proved by the weight of the gas into which 
it has been transformed to be still existing; the assump- 
tion is that, though otherwise insensible to us, the amount 
of matter is the same if it still tends towards the Earth 
with the same force. Similarly, every case in which the 
weight of an element present in combination is inferred 
from the known weight of another element which it 
neutralizes, is a case in which the quantity of matter is ex- 
pressed in terms of the quantity of chemical force it exerts; 
and in which this specific chemical force is assumed to be 
the correlative of a specific gravitative force. 

Thus, then, by the Indestructibility of Matter, we really 
mean the indestructibility of the force with which Matter 
affects us. As we become conscious of Matter only through 
that resistance which it opposes to our muscular energy, so 
do we become conscious of the permanence of Matter only 
through the permanence of this resistance; either as im- 
mediately or as mediately proved to us. And this truth is 
made manifest not only by analysis of the d posteriori 
cognition, but equally so by analysis of the d priori one.* 

* Lest he should not have observed it, the reader must be warned that the 
terms "d priori truth" and "necessary truth," as used in this work, are to 
be interpreted not in the old sense, as implying cognitions wholly independent 
of experiences, but as implying cognitions that have been rendered organic 
by immense accumulations of experiences, received partly by the individual, 
but mainly by all ancestral individuals whose nervous systems he inherits. 
On referring to the Principles of Psychology (§§ 426-433), it will be seen that 
the warrant alleged for one of these irreversible ultimate convictions is that, 
on the hypothesis of Evolution, it represents an immeasurably-greater accumu- 
lation of experiences than can be acquired by any single individual. 



CHAPTEE V. 

THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 

§ 55. Another general truth of the same order with the 
foregoing, must here be specified. Like the Indestructibil- 
ity of Matter, the Continuity of Motion, or, more strictly, of 
that something which has Motion for one of its sensible 
forms, is a proposition on the truth of which depends the 
possibility of exact Science, and therefore of a Philosophy 
which unifies the results of exact Science. Motions, visible 
and invisible, of masses and of molecules, form the larger 
half of the phenomena to be interpreted; and if such mo- 
tions might either proceed from nothing or lapse into noth- 
ing, there could be no scientific interpretation of them. 

This second fundamental truth, like the first, is by no 
means self-evident to primitive men or to the uncultured 
among ourselves. Contrariwise, to undeveloped minds the 
opposite seems self-evident. The facts that a stone thrown 
up soon loses its ascending motion, and that after the blow 
its fall gives to the Earth, it remains quiescent, apparently 
prove that the principle of activity* which the stone mani- 
fested may disappear absolutely. Accepting, without criti- 
cism, the dicta of unaided perception, to the effect that 
adjacent objects put in motion soon return to rest, all men 
once believed, and most believe still, that motion can pass 
into nothing; and ordinarily does so pass. But 

* Throughout this Chapter I use this phrase, not with any metaphysical 
meaning, but merely to avoid foregone conclusions. 

184 



THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 1&5 

the establishment of certain facts having an opposite impli- 
cation, led to inquiries which have gradually proved these 
appearances to be illusive. The discovery that the planets 
revolve round the Sun with undiminishing speed, raised 
the suspicion that a moving body, when not interfered with, 
will go on for ever without change of velocity; and sug- 
gested the question whether bodies which lose their motion, 
do not at the same time communicate as much motion to 
other bodies. It was a familiar fact that a stone would 
glide further over a smooth surface, such as ice, presenting 
no small objects to which it could part with its motion by 
collision, than over a surface strewn with such small objects; 
and that a projectile would travel a far greater distance 
through a rare medium like air, than through a dense 
medium like water. Thus the primitive notion that moving 
bodies had an inherent tendency to lose their motion and 
finally stop — a notion of which the Greeks did not get rid, 
but which lasted till the time of Galileo — began to give way. 
It was further shaken by such experiments as those of 
Tlooke, which proved that the spinning of a top continues 
long in proportion as it is prevented from communicating 
motion to surrounding matter. 

To explain specifically how modern physicists interpret 
all disappearances and diminutions of visible motion, would 
require more knowledge than I possess and more space than 
I can spare. Here it must suffice to state, generally, that 
the molar motion which disappears when a bell is struck by 
its clapper, reappears in the bell's vibrations and in the 
waves of air they produce; that when a moving mass is 
stopped by coming against a mass that is immovable, the 
motion which does not appear in sound reappears as 
molecular motion; and that, similarly, when bodies rub 
against one another, the motion lost by friction is gained in 
the motion of molecules. But one aspect of this general 
truth, as it is displayed to us in the motions of masses, 
we must carefully contemplate; for otherwise the doc- 
14 



186 THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 

trine of the Continuity of Motion will be entirely mis- 
apprehended. 

§ 56. As expressed by Newton, the first law of motion 
is that " every body must persevere in its state of rest, or of 
uniform motion in a straight line, unless it be compelled to 
change that state by forces impressed upon it." 

With this truth may be associated the truth that a body 
describing a circular orbit round a centre which detains it 
by a tractive force, moves in that orbit with undiminished 
velocity. 

The first of these abstract truths is never realized in the 
concrete, and the second of them is but approximately 
realized. Uniform motion in a straight line, implies the 
absence of a resisting medium; and it further implies the 
absence of forces, gravitative or other, exercised by neigh- 
bouring masses: conditions never fulfilled. So, too, the 
maintenance of a circular orbit by any celestial body, im- 
plies both that there are no perturbing bodies, and that there 
is a certain exact adjustment between its velocity and the 
tractive force of its primary: neither requirement ever 
being conformed to. In all actual orbits, sensibly elliptical 
as they are, the velocity is sensibly variable. And along 
with great eccentricity there goes great variation. 

To the case of celestial bodies which, moving in eccen- 
tric orbits, display at one time little motion and at another 
much motion, may be joined the case of the pendulum. 
With speed now increasing and now decreasing, the pen- 
dulum alternates between extremes at which motion ceases. 

How shall we so conceive these allied phenomena as to 
express rightly the truth common to them? The first law 
of motion, nowhere literally fulfilled, is yet, in a sense, 
implied by these facts which seem at variance with it. 
Though in a circular orbit the direction of the motion is 
continually being changed, yet the velocity remains un- 
changed. Though in an elliptical orbit there is now accel- 



THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 1S.7 

eration and now retardation, yet the average speed is con- 
stant through successive revolutions. Though the pendu- 
lum conies to a momentary rest at the end of each swing, 
and then begins a reverse motion; yet the oscillation, con- 
sidered as a whole, is continuous: friction and atmospheric 
resistance being absent, this alternation of states will go on 
for ever. 

What, then, do these cases show us in common? That 
which vision familiarizes us with in Motion, and that which 
has thus been made the dominant element in our conception 
of Motion, is not the element of which we can allege con- 
tinuity. If we regard Motion simply as change of place; 
then the pendulum shows us both that the rate of this 
change may vary from instant to instant, and that, ceasing 
at intervals, it may be afresh initiated. 

But if what we may call the translation-element in Mo- 
tion is not continuous, what is continuous? If, watching 
like Galileo a swinging chandelier, we observe, not its iso- 
chronism, but the recurring reversal of its swing, we are 
impressed with the fact that though, at the end of each 
swing, the translation through space ceases, yet there is 
something which does not cease; for the translation recom- 
mences in the opposite direction. And on remembering 
that when a violent push was given to the chandelier it 
described a larger arc, and was a longer time before the 
resistance of the air destroyed its oscillations, we are shown 
that what continues to exist during these oscillations is 
some correlative of the muscular effort which put the chan- 
delier in motion. The truth forced on our attention by 
these facts and inferences, is that translation through space 
is not itself an existence ; and that hence the cessation of 
Motion, considered simply as translation, is not the cessa- 
tion of an existence, but is the cessation of a certain sign of 
an existence — a sign occurring under certain conditions. 

Still there remains a difficulty. If that clement in the 
chandelier's motion of which alone we can allege continuity, 



188 THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 

is the correlative of the muscular effort which moved the 
chandelier, what becomes of this element at either extreme 
of the oscillation? Arrest the chandelier in the middle of 
its swing, and it gives a blow to the hand — exhibits some 
principle of activity such as muscular effort can give. But 
touch it at either turning point, and it displays no such 
principle of activity. This has disappeared just as much 
as the translation through space has disappeared. How, 
then, can it be alleged that though the Motion through 
space is not continuous, the principle of activity implied 
by the Motion is continuous? 

Unquestionably the facts show that the principle of 
activity continues to exist under some form. When not 
perceptible it must be latent. How is it latent? A clue 
to the answer is gained on observing that though the chan- 
delier when seized at the turning point of its swing, gives 
no impact in the direction of its late movement, it forth- 
with begins to pull in the opposite direction; and on ob- 
serving, further, that its pull is great when the swing has 
been made extensive by a violent push. Hence the loss of 
visible activity at the highest point of the upward motion, is 
accompanied by the production of an invisible activity which 
generates the subsequent motion downwards. To conceive 
this latent activity gained as an existence equal to the per- 
ceptible activity lost, is not easy; but we may help our- 
selves so to conceive it by considering cases of another class. 

§ 57. When one who pushes against a door that has 
stuck fast, produces by great effort no motion, but eventually 
by a little greater effort bursts the door open, swinging it 
back against the wall and tumbling headlong into the room ; 
he has evidence that a certain muscular strain which did not 
produce translation of matter through space, was yet equiva- 
lent to a certain amount of such translation. Again, when 
a railway-porter gradually stops a detached carriage by pull- 
ing at the buffer, he shows us that (supposing friction, etc., 



THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 189 

absent) the slowly-diminished motion of the carriage over a 
certain space, is the equivalent of the constant backward 
strain put upon the carriage while it is travelling through 
that space. Carrying with us the conception thus reached, 
we will now consider a case which makes it more definite. 

When used as a plaything by boys, a ball fastened to 
the end of an india-rubber string yields a clear idea of 
the correlation between perceptible activity and latent ac- 
tivity. If, retaining one end of the string, a boy throws the 
ball from him horizontally, its motion is resisted by the 
increasing strain on the string; and the string, stretched 
more and more as the ball recedes, presently brings it to 
rest. Where now exists the principle of activity which 
the moving ball displayed? It exists in the strained thread 
of india-rubber. Under what form of changed molecu- 
lar state it exists we need not ask. It suffices that the string 
is the seat of a tension generated by the motion of the 
ball, and equivalent to it. When the ball has been arrested, 
the stretched string begins to generate in it an opposite mo- 
tion; and continues to accelerate that motion until the ball 
comes back to the point at which the stretching of the 
string commenced — a point at which, but for loss by atmos- 
pheric resistance and molecular redistribution, its velocity 
would be equal to the original velocity. Here the truth that 
the principle of activity, alternating between visible and 
invisible modes, does not cease to exist when the translation 
through space ceases to exist, is readily comprehensible; 
and it becomes easy to understand the corollary that at each 
point in the path of the ball, the quantity of its perceptible 
activity, plus the quantity which is latent in the stretched 
string, yield a constant sum. 

Aided by this illustration we can, in a general way, con- 
ceive what happens between bodies connected with one 
another, not by a stretched string, but by a traction exer- 
cised through what seems empty space. It matters not 
to our general conception that the intensity of this traction 



190 THE CONTINUITY OP MOTION. 

varies in a totally-different manner: decreasing as the 
square of the distance increases, but being practically con- 
stant for terrestrial distances. These differences being rec- 
ognized, there is nevertheless to be recognized a truth com- 
mon to both cases. The weight of something held in the 
hand shows that there exists between one body in space 
and another, a strain : this downward pull, ascribed to grav- 
ity, affects the hand as it might be affected by a stretched 
elastic string. Hence, when a body projected upwards and 
gradually retarded by gravity, finally stops, we must re- 
gard the principle of activity manifested during its upward 
motion but disappearing at its turning-point, as having be- 
come latent in the strain between it and the Earth — a strain 
of which the quantity is to be conceived as the product of its 
intensity and the distance through which it acts. Carrying 
a step further our illustration of the stretched string, will 
elucidate this. To simulate the action of gravity at terres- 
trial distances, let us imagine that when the attached moving 
body has stretched the elastic string to its limit, say at the 
distance of ten feet, a second like string could instantly be 
tied to the end of the first and to the body, which, continuing 
its course, stretched this second string to an equal length, 
and so on with a succession of such strings, till the body 
was arrested. Then, manifestly, the quantity of the prin- 
ciple of activity which the moving body had displayed, 
but which has now become latent in the series of stretched 
strings, is measured by the number of such strings simi- 
larly stretched — the number of feet through which this 
constant strain has been encountered, and over which it still 
extends. Now though we cannot conceive the tractive 
force of gravity to be exercised in a like way — though the 
gravitative action, utterly unknown in nature, is probably 
a resultant of actions pervading the ethereal medium; yet 
the above analogy suggests the belief that the principle 
of activity in a moving body arrested by gravity, has not 
ceased to exist, but has become so much imperceptible or 



THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 191 

latent activity in the medium occupying space, and that 
when the body falls, this is re-transformed into its equiva- 
lent of perceptible activity. If we conceive the process at 
all, we must conceive it thus: otherwise, we have to con- 
ceive that a power is changed into a space-relation, and this 
is inconceivable. 

Here, then, is the solution of the difficulty. The space- 
element of Motion is not in itself a thing. Change of posi- 
tion is not an existence, but the manifestation of an exist- 
ence. This existence may cease to display itself as transla- 
tion; but it can do so only by displaying itself as strain. 
And this principle of activity, now shown by translation, 
now by strain, and often by the two together, is alone that 
which in Motion we can call continuous. 

§58. What is this principle of activity? Vision gives 
us no idea of it. If by a mirror we cast the image of an 
illuminated object on to a dark wall, and then suddenly 
changing the attitude of the mirror, make the reflected 
image pass from side to side, the image, if recognized as 
such, does not raise the thought that there is present in it 
a principle of activity. Before we can conceive the presence 
of this, we must regard the impression yielded through 
our eyes as symbolizing something tangible — something 
which offers resistance. Hence the principle of activity 
as known by sight, is inferential: visible translation sug- 
gests by association the presence of a principle of activity 
which would be appreciable by our skin and muscles did 
we lay hold of the body. Evidently, then, this principle 
of activity which Motion shows us, is the objective corre- 
late of our subjective sense of effort. By pushing and pull- 
ing, we get feelings which, generalized and abstracted, yield 
our ideas of resistance and tension. Now displayed by 
changing position and now by unchanging strain, this prin- 
ciple of activity is ultimately conceived by us under the 
single form of its equivalent muscular effort. So that the 



192 THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 

continuity of Motion, as well as the indestructibility of 
Matter, is really known to us in terms of Force. 

§ 59. And now we reach the essential truth to be here 
especially noted. All proofs of the Continuity of Motion in- 
volve the postulate that the quantity of force is constant. Ob- 
serve what results when we analyze the reasonings by which 
the Continuity of Motion, as here understood, is shown. 

A particular planet can be identified only by its con- 
stant power to affect our visual organs in a special way. 
Further, such planet has not been seen to move by the astro- 
nomical observer; but its motion is inferred from a com- 
parison of its present position with the position it before 
occupied. If rigorously examined, this comparison proves 
to be a comparison between the different impressions pro- 
duced on him by the different adjustments of his observing 
instruments. And, manifestly, the validity of all the in- 
ferences drawn from these likenesses and unlikenesses, 
depends oil the truth of the assumption that these masses 
of matter, celestial and terrestrial, will continue to affect 
his senses in exactly the same ways under the same con- 
ditions; and that no changes in their powers of affecting 
him can have arisen without force having been expended 
in working those changes. Going a step further 

back, it turns out that difference in the adjustment of his 
observing instrument, and by implication in the planet, is 
meaningless until shown to correspond with a certain calcu- 
lated position which the planet must occupy, supposing that 
no motion has been lost. And if, finally, we examine the 
implied calculation, we find that it takes into account those 
accelerations and retardations which ellipticity of the orbit 
involves, as well as those variations of velocity caused by 
adjacent planets — we find, that is, that the motion is con- 
cluded to be indestructible not from the uniform velocity 
of the planet, but from the constant quantity of motion 
exhibited when allowance is made for the motion communi- 



THE CONTINUITY OF MOTION. 193 

cated to, or received from, other celestial bodies. And 
when we ask how this communicated motion is estimated, 
we discover that the estimate is based on certain laws of 
force; which laws, one and all, embody the postulate that 
force cannot be destroyed. Without the axiom that action 
and re-action are equal and opposite, astronomy could not 
make its exact predictions. 

Similarly with the d priori conclusion that Motion is 
continuous. That which defies suppression in thought, is 
really the force which the motion indicates. We can imag- 
ine retardation to result from the action of external bodies. 
But to imagine this, is not possible without imagining ab- 
straction of the force implied by the motion. We are 
obliged to conceive this force as impressed in the shape of 
reaction on the bodies that cause the arrest. And the mo- 
tion communicated to them, we are compelled to regard, 
not as directly communicated, but as a product of the com- 
municated force. We can mentally diminish the velocity 
or space-element of motion, by diffusing the momentum 
or force-element over a larger mass of matter; but the 
quantity of this force-element, which we regard as the cause 
of the motion, is unchangeable in thought.* 

* It is needful to state that this exposition differs in its point of view 
from the expositions ordinarily given; and that some of the words employed, 
such as strain, have somewhat larger implications. Unable to learn anything 
about the nature of Force, physicists have, of late years, formulated ultimate 
physical truths in such ways as often tacitly to exclude the consciousness of 
Force: conceiving cause, as Hume proposed, in terms of antecedence and 
sequence only. " Potential energy," for example, is defined as constituted by 
such relations in space as permit masses to generate in one nnother certain 
motions, but as being in itself nothing. While this mode of conceiving the 
phenomena suffices for physical inquiries, it does not suffice for the purposes 
of philosophy. After referring to the Principles of Psychology, £i> 847-350, 
the reader will understand what I mean by saying that since our ideas of 
Body, Space, Motion, are derived from our ideas of muscular tension, which 
are the ultimate symbols into which all our other mental symbols arc inter- 
pretable, to formulate phenomena in the proximate terms of Body, Space, 
Motion, while discharging from the concepts the consciousness of Force, is to 
acknowledge the superstructure while ignoring the foundation. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE.* 

§ 60. In the foregoing two chapters, manifestations of 
force of two fundamentally-different classes have been dealt 
with — the force by which matter demonstrates itself to ns 
as existing, and the force by which it demonstrates itself 
to us as acting. 

Body is distinguishable from space by its power of 
affecting our senses, and, in the last resort, by its opposition 
to our efforts. We can conceive of body only by joining in 
thought extension and resistance: take away resistance, 
and there remains only space. In what way this force 
which produces space-occupancy is conditioned we do not 

* Some explanation of this title seems needful. In the text itself are 
given the reasons for using the word " force " instead of the word " energy ; " 
and here I must say why I think " persistence " preferable to " conserva- 
tion." Some two years ago (this was written in 1861) I expressed to my 
friend Prof. Huxley, my dissatisfaction with the (then) current expression — 
" Conservation of Force : " assigning as reasons, first, that the word " con- 
servation" implies a conserver and an act of conserving; and, second, that 
it does not imply the existence of the force before the particular manifesta- 
tion of it which is contemplated. And I may now add, as a further fault, 
the tacit assumption that, without some act of conservation, force would 
disappear. All these implications are at variance with the conception to be 
conveyed. In place of " conservation " Prof. Huxley suggested persistence. 
This meets most of the objections ; and though it may be urged against it 
that it; docs not directly imply pre existence of the force at any time mani- 
fested, yet no other word less faulty in this respect can be found. In the ab- 
sence of a word specially coined for the purpose, it seems the best ; and as 
such I adopt it. 

194 



THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE. 195 

know. The mode of force which is revealed to us only by 
opposition to our own powers, may be in essence the same 
with the mode of force which reveals itself by the changes it 
initiates in our consciousness. That the space a body occu- 
pies is in part determined by the degree of that activity pos- 
sessed by its molecules which we call heat, is a familiar 
truth. Moreover, we know that such molecular re-arrange- 
ment as occurs in the change of water into ice, is accom- 
panied by an evolution of force which may burst the con- 
taining vessel and give motion to the fragments. Never- 
theless, the forms of our experience oblige us to distinguish 
between two modes of force ; the one not a worker of change 
and the other a worker of change, actual or potential. The 
first of these — the space-occupying kind of force — has no 
specific name. 

For the second kind off force, distinguishable as that by 
which change is either being caused or will be caused if 
counterbalancing forces are overcome, the specific name 
now accepted is " Energy." That which in the last chapter 
was spoken of as perceptible activity, is called by physicists, 
" actual energy"; and that which was called latent activ- 
ity, is called " potential energy." While including the 
mode of activity shown in molar motion, Energy includes 
also the several modes of activity into which molar motion is 
transformable — heat, light, etc. It is the common name for 
the power shown alike in the movements of masses and in 
the movements of molecules. To our perceptions this sec- 
ond kind of force differs from the first kind as being not 
intrinsic but extrinsic. 

In aggregated matter as presented to sight and touch, 
tin- antithesis is, as above implied, much obscured. Espe- 
cially in a compound substance, both the potential energy 
locked up in the chemically-combined molecules, and the 
actual energy made perceptible to us as heat, complicate 
the manifestations of intrinsic force by the ma infestations 
of extrinsic force. But the antithesis here partially hidden, 



196 THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE. 

is clearly seen on reducing the data to their lowest terms 
— a unit of matter, or atom, and its motion. The force by 
which it exists is passive hut independent; while the force 
by which it moves is active hut dependent on its past and 
present relations to other atoms. These two cannot be iden- 
tified in our thoughts. For as it is impossible to think of 
motion without something that moves; so it is impossible 
to think of energy without something possessing the 
energy. 

While recognizing this fundamental distinction be- 
tween that intrinsic force by which body manifests itself as 
occupying space, and that extrinsic force distinguished as 
energy; I here treat of them together as being alike per- 
sistent. And I thus treat of them together partly for the 
reason that, in our consciousness of them, there is the same 
essential element. The sense of effort is our subjective 
symbol for objective force in general, passive and active. 
Power of neutralizing that which we know as our own 
muscular strain, is the ultimate element in our idea of body 
as distinguished from space; and any energy which we can 
give to body, or receive from it, is thought of as equal to a 
certain amount of muscular strain. The two conscious- 
nesses differ essentially in this, that the feeling of effort 
common to the two is in the last case joined with conscious- 
ness of change of position, but in the first case is not.* 

* In respect to the fundamental distinction here made between the space- 
occupying kind of force, and the kind of force shown by various modes of 
activity, I am, as in the last chapter, at issue with some of my scientific 
friends. They do not admit that the conception of force is involved in the 
conception of a unit of matter. From the psychological point of view, how- 
ever, Matter, in all its properties, is the unknown cause of the sensations it 
produces in us ; of *which the one which remains when all the others are 
absent, is resistance to our efforts — a resistance we arc obliged tc symbolize 
as the equivalent of the muscular force it opposes. In imagining a unit of 
matter we may not ignore this symbol, by which alone a unit of matter can 
be figured in thought as an existence. It is not allowable to speak ae though 
there remained a conception of an existence when that conception has been 
eviscerated — deprived of the element of thought by which it is distinguished 



THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE. 197 

There is, however, a further and more important reason 
for here dealing with the truth that Force under each of 
these forms persists. We have to examine its warrant. 

§ 61. At the risk of trying the reader's patience, we 
must reconsider the reasoning through which the indestruc- 
tibility of Matter and the continuity of Motion are estab- 
lished, that we may see how impossible it is to arrive by 
parallel reasoning at the Persistence of Force. 

In all three cases the question is one of quantity: — does 
the Matter, or Motion, or Force, ever diminish in quantity? 
Quantitative science implies measurement; and measure- 
ment implies a unit of measure. The units of measure 
from which all others of any exactness are derived, are 
units of linear extension. Our units of linear extension are 
the lengths of masses of matter, or the spaces between 
marks made on the masses ; and we assume these lengths, or 
these spaces between marks, to remain unchanged while the 
temperature is unchanged. From the standard-measure pre- 
served at Westminster, are derived the measures for trigo- 
nometrical surveys, for geodesy, the measurement of terres- 
trial arcs, and the calculations of astronomical distances, 
dimensions, etc., and therefore for Astronomy at large. 
Were these units of length, original and derived, irregu- 
larly variable, there could be no celestial dynamics; nor any 
of that verification yielded by it of the constancy of the 
celestial masses or of their energies. Hence, persistence 
of the space-occupying species of force cannot be proved; 
for the reason that it is tacitly assumed in every experi- 
ment or observation by which it is proposed to prove 
it. The like holds of the force distinguished as 

energy. The endeavour to establish this by measurement, 
takes for granted both the persistence of the intrinsic force 

from empty space. Divest the conceived unit of matter of the objective 
correlate to our subjective .sense of effort, and the entire fabric of physical 
conceptions disappears. 



198 THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE. 

by whicli body manifests itself as existing and the persist- 
ence of the extrinsic force by which body acts. For it is 
from these equal units of linear extension, through the 
medium of the equal-armed lever or scales, that we derive 
our equal units of weight, or gravitative force ; and only by 
means of these can we make those quantitative comparisons 
by which the truths of exact science are reached. Through- 
out the investigations leading the chemist to the conclusion 
that of the carbon which has disappeared during combustion, 
no portion has been lost, what is his repeatedly-assigned 
proof? That afforded by the scales. In what terms is the 
verdict of the scales given? In grains — in units of weight 
— in units of gravitative force. And what is the total con- 
tent of the verdict ? That as many units of gravitative force 
as the carbon exhibited at first, it exhibits still. The valid- 
ity of the inference, then, depends entirely upon the con- 
stancy of the units of force. If the force with which the 
portion of metal called a grain-weight, tends towards the 
Earth, has varied, the inference that matter is indestructi- 
ble is vicious. Everything turns on the truth of the as- 
sumption that the gravitation of the weights is persist- 
ent; and of this no proof is assigned, or can be as- 
signed. In the reasonings of the astronomer 
there is a like implication; from which we may draw the 
like conclusion. ~No problem in celestial physics can be 
solved without the assumption of some unit of force. This 
unit need not be, like a pound or a ton, one of which we can 
take direct cognizance. It is requisite only that the mutual 
attraction which some two of the bodies concerned exercise 
at a given distance, should be taken as one ; so that the other 
attractions with which the problem deals, may be expressed 
in terms of this one. Such unit being assumed, the motions 
which the respective masses will generate in each other in 
a given time, are calculated; and compounding these with 
the motions they already have, their places at the end of that 
time are predicted. The prediction is verified by observa- 



THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE. 199 

tion. From this, either of two inferences may be drawn. 
Assuming the masses to be unchanged, their energies, ac- 
tual and potential, may be proved to be undiminished; or 
assuming their energies to be undiminished, the masses 
may be proved unchanged. But the validity of one 
or other inference, depends wholly on the truth of the as- 
sumption that the unit of force is unchanged. Let it be sup- 
posed that the gravitation of the two bodies towards each 
other at the given distance, has varied, and the conclusions 
drawn are no longer true. isTor is it only in their 

concrete data that the reasonings of terrestrial and celestial 
physics assume the Persistence of Force. The equality of 
action and reaction is taken for granted from beginning 
to end of either argument ; and to assert that action and re- 
action are equal and opposite, is to assert that Force is per- 
sistent. The allegation really amounts to this, that there 
cannot be an isolated force beginning and ending in noth- 
ing; but that any force manifested, implies an equal ante- 
cedent force from which it is derived, and against which it is 
a reaction. 

We might indeed be certain, even in the absence of any 
such analysis as the foregoing, that there must exist some 
principle which, as being the basis of science, cannot be 
established by science. All reasoned-out conclusions what- 
ever must rest on some postulate. As before shown (§ 23), 
we cannot go on merging derivative truths in those wider 
and wider truths from which they are derived, without 
reaching at last a widest truth which can be merged in no 
other, or derived from no other. And whoever contem- 
plates the relation in which it stands to the truths of science 
in general, will see that this truth transcending demonstra- 
tion is the Persistence of Force. 

§ 62. But now what is the force of which we predi- 
cate persistence? It is not I lie force wo are immediately 
conscious of in our own muscular efforts; for this does 



200 THE PERSISTENCE OF FORCE. 

not persist. As soon as an outstretched limb is relaxed, 
the sense of tension disappears. True, we assert that in the 
stone thrown or in the weight lifted, is exhibited the effect 
of this muscular tension; and that the force which has 
ceased to be present in our consciousness, exists elsewhere. 
But it does not exist elsewhere under any form cognizable 
by us. In § 18 we saw that though, on raising an object 
from the ground, we are obliged to think of its down- 
ward pull as equal and opposite to our upward pull; and 
though it is impossible to represent these as equal without 
representing them as like in kind; yet, since their likeness 
in kind would imply in the object a sensation of muscular 
tension, which cannot be ascribed to it, we are compelled to 
admit that force as it exists out of our consciousness, is not 
force as we know it. Hence the force of which we assert 
persistence is that Absolute Force of which we are indefi- 
nitely conscious as the necessary correlate of the force we 
know. By the Persistence of Force, we really mean the 
persistence of some Cause which transcends our knowl- 
edge and conception. In asserting it we assert an Uncon- 
ditioned Reality, without beginning or end. 

Thus, quite unexpectedly, we come down once more to 
that ultimate truth in which, as we saw, Religion and Sci- 
ence coalesce. On examining the data underlying a rational 
Theory of Things, we find them all at last resolvable into 
that datum without which consciousness was shown to be 
impossible — the continued existence of an Unknowable as 
the necessary correlative of the Knowable. 

The sole truth which transcends experience by underly- 
ing it, is thus the Persistence of Force. This being the basis 
of experience, must be the basis of any scientific organiza- 
tion of experiences. To this an ultimate analysis brings 
us down; and on this a rational synthesis must build up. 



CHAPTEE Vn. 

THE PERSISTENCE OF RELATIONS AMONG FORCES. 

§ 63. The first deduction to be drawn from the ultimate 
universal truth that force persists, is that the relations 
among forces persist. Supposing a given manifestation of 
force, under a given form and given conditions, be either 
preceded by or succeeded by some other manifestation, it 
must, in all cases where the form and conditions are the 
same, be preceded by or succeeded by such other manifesta- 
tion. Every antecedent mode of the Unknowable must 
have an invariable connexion, quantitative and qualitative, 
with that mode of the Unknowable which we call its con- 
sequent. 

For to say otherwise is to deny the persistence of force. 
If in any two cases there is exact likeness not only between 
those most conspicuous antecedents which we distinguish 
as the causes, but also between those accompanying ante- 
cedents which we call the conditions, we cannot affirm that 
the effects will differ, without affirming either that some 
force has come into existence or that some force has ceased 
to exist. If the cooperative forces in the one case arc 
equal to those in the other, each to each, in distribution and 
amount; then it is Impossible to conceive; the product of 
their joint action in the one case as unlike that in the other, 
without conceiving one or more of the force- to have in- 
creased or diminished in quantity; and this ifl conceiving 
that force is not persistent. 

13 201 



202 THE PERSISTENCE OF RELATIONS AMONG FORCES. 

To impress the truth here enunciated under its most 
abstract form, some illustrations will be desirable. 

§ 64. Let two equal bullets be projected with equal 
forces; then, in equal times, equal distances must be trav- 
elled by them. The assertion that one of them will describe 
an assigned space sooner than the other, though their 
initial momenta were alike and they have been equally 
resisted (for if they are unequally resisted the antecedents 
differ) is an assertion that equal quantities of force have not 
done equal amounts of work; and this cannot be thought 
without thinking that some force has disappeared into noth- 
ing or arisen out of nothing. Assume, further, that 
during its flight, one of them has been drawn by the Earth 
a certain number of inches out of its original line of move- 
ment ; then the other, which has moved the same distance in 
the same time, must have fallen just as far towards the 
Earth. ~No other result can be imagined without imagining 
that equal attractions acting for equal times, have pro- 
duced unequal effects, which involves the inconceivable 
proposition that some action has been created or anni- 
hilated. Again, one of the bullets having pene- 
trated the target to a certain depth, penetration by the 
other bullet to a smaller depth, unless caused by altered 
shape of the bullet or greater local density in the target, 
cannot be mentally represented. Such a modification of 
the consequents without modification of the antecedents, 
is thinkable only through the impossible thought that 
something has become nothing or nothing has become some- 
thing. 

It is thus not with sequences only, but also with simul- 
taneous changes and permanent co-existences. Given 
charges of powder alike in quantity and quality, fired from 
barrels of the same structure, and propelling bullets of 
equal weights, sizes, and forms, similarly rammed down; 
and it is a necessary inference that the concomitant actions 



. THE RESISTENCE OF RELATIONS AMONG FORCES. 203 

which make up the explosion, will bear to one another like 
relations of quantity and quality in the two cases. The pro- 
portions among the different products of combustion will be 
equal. The several amounts of force taken up in giving 
momentum to the bullet, heat to the gases, and sound on. 
their escape, will preserve the same ratios. The quantities 
of light and smoke in the one case will be what they are in 
the other; and the two recoils will be alike. For no dif- 
ference of proportion, or no difference of relation, among 
these concurrent phenomena can be imagined as arising, 
without imagining such difference of proportion or relation 
as arising uncaused — as arising by the creation or annihila- 
tion of force. 

That which here holds between two cases must hold 
among any number of cases; and that which here holds 
between antecedents and consequents that are comparatively 
simple, must hold however involved the antecedents be- 
come and however involved the consequents become. 

§ 65. Thus what we call uniformity of law, resolvable as 
we find it into the persistence of relations among forces, is 
an immediate corollary from the persistence of force. The 
general conclusion that there exist constant connexions 
among phenomena, ordinarily regarded as an inductive 
conclusion only, is really a conclusion deducible from the 
ultimate datum of consciousness. Though, in saying this, 
we seem to be illegitimately inferring- that what is true of 
the ego is also true of the non-ego ; yet here this inference is 
legitimate. For that which we thus predicate as holding in 
common of ego and non-ego, is that which they have in 
common as being both existences. The assertion of an exist- 
ence beyond consciousness, is itself an assert ion that there is 
something beyond consciousness which persists; for persist- 
ence is nothing more than continued existence, and existence 
cannol be thought of as other than continued. And we 
cannot assert persistence of this something beyond con- 



204 THE PERSISTENCE OP RELATIONS AMONG FORCES. 

sciousness, without asserting that the relations among its 
manifestations are persistent. 

That uniformity of law thus follows inevitably from the 
persistence of force, will become more and more clear as we 
advance. The next chapter will indirectly supply abundant 
illustrations of it. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TRAIS T SF0R:\IATI0N AND EQUIVALENCE OF FOECES. 

§ 66. When, to the unaided senses, Science began to 
add supplementary senses in the shape of measuring instru- 
ments, men began to perceive various phenomena which eyes 
and fingers could not distinguish. Of known forms of force, 
minuter manifestations became appreciable; and forms of 
force before unknown were rendered cognizable and meas- 
ureable. \Yhere forces had apparently ended in nothing, 
and had been carelessly supposed to have actually done so, 
instrumental observation proved that effects had in every 
instance been produced: the forces reappearing in new 
shapes. Hence there has at length arisen the inquiry 
whether the force displayed in each surrounding change, 
does not in the act of expenditure undergo metamorphosis 
into an equivalent amount of some other force or forces. 
And to this inquiry experiment is giving an affirmative an- 
swer, which becomes daily more decisive. Meyer, Joule, 
Grove and Helmholtz are more than any others to be cred- 
ited with the clear enunciation of this doctrine. Let us 
glance at the evidence on which it rests. 

Motion, wherever we can directly trace its genesis, we 
find to pre-exist as some other mode of force. Our own vol- 
untary acts have always certain sensations of muscular 
tension as their antecedents. When, as in letting fall a re- 
laxed limb, we are conscious of a bodily movement requiring 
no effort, the explanation is that the effort was exerted in 

205 



20G TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

raising the limb to the position whence it fell. In this case, 
as in the case of an inanimate body descending to the Earth, 
the force accumulated by the downward motion is just equal 
to the force previously expended in the act of eleva- 
tion. Conversely, Motion that is arrested produces, 
under different circumstances, heat, electricity, magnetism, 
light. From the warming of the hands by rubbing them 
together, up to the ignition of a railway-brake by intense 
friction — from the lighting of detonating powder by percus- 
sion, up to the setting on fire a block of wood by a few blows 
from a steam-hammer; we have abundant instances in which 
heat arises as Motion ceases. It is uniformly found, that the 
heat generated is great in proportion as the Motion lost is 
great; and that to diminish the arrest of motion, by dimin- 
ishing the friction, is to diminish the quantity of heat 
evolved. The production of electricity by Motion is illus- 
trated equally in the boy's experiment with rubbed sealing- 
wax, in the common electrical machine, and in the apparatus 
for exciting electricity by the escape of steam. Wherever 
there is friction between heterogeneous bodies, electrical dis- 
turbance is one of the consequences. Magnetism may result 
from Motion either immediately, as through percussion on 
iron, or mediately as through electric currents previously 
generated by Motion. And similarly, Motion may create 
light; either directly, as in the minute incandescent frag- 
ments struck off by violent collisions, or indirectly, as 
through the electric spark. " Lastly, Motion may be again 
reproduced by the forces which have emanated from Mo- 
tion; thus, the divergence of the electrometer, the revolu- 
tion of the electrical wheel, the deflection of the magnetic 
needle, are, when resulting from frictional electricity, pal- 
pable movements reproduced by the intermediate modes of 
force, which have themselves been originated by motion." 

That mode of force which we distinguish as Heat, is 
now generally regarded by physicists as molecular motion — 
not motion as displayed in the changed relations of sensible 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 207 

masses to each other, but as occurring among the units of 
which such sensible masses consist. If we cease to think of 
Heat as that particular sensation given to us by bodies in 
certain conditions, and consider the phenomena otherwise 
presented by these bodies, we find that motion, either in 
them or in surrounding bodies, or in both, is all that we 
have evidence of. With one or two exceptions which are 
obstacles to every theory of Heat, heated bodies expand; 
and expansion can be interpreted only as a movement of the 
units of a mass in relation to each other. That so-called 
radiation through which anything of higher temperature 
than things around it, communicates Heat to them, is clearly 
a species of motion. Moreover, the evidence afforded by the 
thermometer that Heat thus diffuses itself, is simply a move- 
ment caused in the mercurial column. And that the molecu- 
lar motion which we call Heat, may be transformed into visi- 
ble motion, familiar proof is given by the steam-engine; in 
which " the piston and all its concomitant masses of matter 
arc moved by the molecular dilatation of the vapour of 
water." Where Heat is absorbed without apparent 

result, modern inquiries show that decided though unob- 
trusive changes are produced: as on glass, the molecular 
state of which is so far changed by heat, that a polarized ray 
of light passing through it becomes visible, which it does not 
do when the glass is cold ; or as on polished metallic surfaces, 
which are so far changed in structure by thermal radiations 
from objects very close to them, as to retain permanent im- 
pressions of such objects. The transformation of Heat into 
electricity, occurs when dissimilar metals touching each 
other are heated at the point of contact: electric currents be- 
ing so induced. Solid, incombustible matter introduced 
into heated gas, as lime into the oxy-hydrogen flame, be- 
comes incandescent; and so exhibits the conversion of Heat 
into light. The production of magnetism by I lent, if it can- 
not be proved to take place directly, may be proved to take 
place indirectly through the medium of electricity. And 



208 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

through the same medium may be established the correla- 
tion of Heat and chemical affinity — a correlation which is 
indeed implied by the marked influence that Heat exercises 
on chemical composition and decomposition. 

The transformations of Electricity into other modes of 
force, are still more clearly demonstrable. Produced by the 
motion of heterogeneous bodies in contact, Electricity, 
through attractions and repulsions, will immediately repro- 
duce motion in neighbouring bodies. Now a current of 
Electricity generates magnetism in a bar of soft iron; and 
now the rotation of a permanent magnet generates currents 
of Electricity. Here we have a battery in which from the 
play of chemical affinities an electric current results; and 
there, in the adjacent cell, we have an electric current effect- 
ing chemical decomposition. In the conducting wire we wit- 
ness the transformation of Electricity into heat; while in 
electric sparks and in the voltaic arc we see light produced. 
Atomic arrangement, too, is changed by Electricity: as in- 
stance the transfer of matter from pole to pole of a battery ; 
the fractures caused by the disruptive discharge ; the forma- 
tion of crystals under the influence of electric currents. 
And whether, conversely, Electricity be or be not directly 
generated by re-arrangement of the atoms of matter, it is at 
any rate indirectly so generated through the intermediation 
of magnetism. 

How from Magnetism the other physical forces result, 
must be next briefly noted — briefly, because in each succes- 
sive case the illustrations become in great part the obverse 
forms of those before given. That Magnetism produces 
motion is the ordinary evidence we have of its existence. In 
the magneto-electric machine we see a rotating magnet 
evolving electricity. And the electricity so evolved may 
immediately after exhibit itself as heat, light, or chemical 
affinity. Faraday's discovery of the effect of Magnetism on 
polarized light, as well as the discovery that change of mag- 
netic state is accompanied by heat point to further like con- 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 209 

nexions. Lastly, various experiments show that the mag- 
netization of a body alters its internal structure; and that 
conversely, the alteration of its internal structure, as by 
mechanical strain, alters its magnetic condition. 

Improbable as it seemed, it is now proved that from 
Light also may proceed the like variety of agencies. The 
solar rays change the atomic arrangements of particular 
crystals. Certain mixed gases, which do not otherwise com- 
bine, combine in the sunshine. In some compounds Light 
produces decomposition. Since the inquiries of photogra- 
phers have drawn attention to the subject, it has been shown 
that " a vast number of substances, both elementary and 
compound, are notably affected by this agent, even those ap- 
parently the most unalterable in character, such as metals/' 
And when a daguerreotype plate is connected with a proper 
apparatus " we get chemical action on the plate, electricity 
circulating through the wires, magnetism in the coil, heat in 
the helix, and motion in the needles. " 

The genesis of all other modes of force from Chemical 
Action, scarcely needs pointing out. The ordinary accom- 
paniment of chemical combination is heat; and when the 
affinities are intense, light also is, under fit conditions, pro- 
duced. Chemical changes involving alteration of bulk, 
cause motion, both in the combining elements and in adja- 
cent masses of matter : witness the propulsion of a bullet by 
the explosion of gun-powder. In the galvanic battery we 
see electricity resulting from chemical composition and de- 
composition. While through the medium of this electricity, 
Chemical Action produces magnetism. 

These facts, the larger part of which are culled from 
Mr. Grove's work on " The Correlation of Physical Forces," 
show us that each force is transformable, directly or indi- 
rectly, into the others. In every change Force undergoes 
metamorphosis; and from the new form or forms it assumes, 
may subsequently result cither the previous one or any of 
the rest, in endless variety of order and combination. It is 



210 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

further becoming manifest that the physical forces stand 
not simply in qualitative correlations with each other, but 
also in quantitative correlations. Besides proving that one 
mode of force may be transformed into another mode, ex- 
periments illustrate the truth that from a definite amount of 
one, definite amounts of others always arise. Ordinarily it 
is indeed difficult to show this ; since it mostly happens that 
the transformation of any force is not into some one of the 
rest but into several of them: the proportions being deter- 
mined by the ever-varying conditions. But in certain cases, 
positive results have been reached. Mr. Joule has ascer- 
tained that the fall of 772 lbs. through one foot, will raise 
the temperature of a pound of water one degree of Fahren- 
heit. The investigations of Dulong, Petit and Neumann, 
have proved a relation in amount between the affinities of 
combining bodies and the heat evolved during their combi- 
nation. Between chemical action and voltaic electricity, a 
quantitative connexion has also been established : Faraday's 
experiments implying that a specific measure of electricity 
is disengaged by a given measure of chemical action. The 
well-determined relations between the quantities of heat 
generated and water turned into steam, or still better the 
known expansion produced in steam by each additional de- 
gree of heat, may be cited in further evidence. Whence it 
is no longer doubted that among the several forms which 
force assumes, the quantitative relations are fixed. The con- 
clusion tacitly agreed on by physicists, is, not only that the 
physical forces undergo metamorphoses, but that a 'certain 
amount of each is the constant equivalent of certain amounts 
of the others. 

§ 67. Everywhere throughout the Cosmos this truth 
must invariably hold. Every successive change, or group of 
changes, going on in it, must be due to forces affiliable on 
the like or unlike forces previously existing ; while from the 
forces exhibited in such change or changes must be derived 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 211 

others more or less transformed. And besides recognizing 
this necessary linking of the forces at any time manifested, 
with those preceding and succeeding them, we must recog- 
nize the amounts of these forces as determinate — as neces- 
sarily producing such and such quantities of results, and as 
necessarily limited to those quantities. 

That unification of knowledge which is the business of 
Philosophy, is but little furthered by the establishment of 
this truth under its general form. We must trace it out 
under its leading special forms. Changes, and the accom- 
panying transformations of forces, are everywhere in pro- 
gress, from the movements of stars to the currents of our 
thoughts; and to comprehend, in any adequate way, the 
meaning of the great fact that forces, unceasingly metamor- 
phosed, are nowhere increased or decreased, it is requisite 
for us to contemplate the various orders of changes going on 
around, for the purpose of ascertaining whence arise the 
forces they imply and what becomes of these forces. Of 
course if answerable at all, these questions can be answered 
only in the rudest way. We cannot hope to establish 
equivalence among the successive manifestations of force. 
The most we can hope is to establish a qualitative correla- 
tion that is indefinitely quantitative — quantitative to the 
extent of involving something like a due proportion between 
causes and effects. 

Let us, with the view of trying to do this, consider in 
succession the several classes of phenomena which the sev- 
eral concrete sciences deal with. 

§ 68. The antecedents of those forces which our Solar 
System displays, belong to a past of which wc can never 
have anything but inferential knowledge; and at present we 
cannot be said to have even this. Xumerous and strong as 
are the reasons for believing the Nebular Hypothesis, w6 
cannot yet regard if as more than an hypothesis. Ef, how- 
ever, we assume that the matter composing the Solar System 



212 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

once existed in a diffused state, we have, in the gravitation 
of its parts, a force adequate to produce the motions now 
going on. 

Masses of precipitated nebulous matter, moving towards 
their common centre of gravity through the resisting me- 
dium from which they were precipitated, will inevitably 
cause a general rotation, increasing in rapidity as the concen- 
tration progresses. So far as the evidence carries us, we per- 
ceive some quantitative relation between the motions so gen- 
erated and the gravitative forces expended in generating 
them. The planets formed from that matter which has trav- 
elled the shortest distance towards the common centre of 
gravity, have the smallest velocities. Doubtless this is ex- 
plicable on the teleological hypothesis ; since it is a condition 
to equilibrium. But without insisting that this is beside the 
question, it will suffice to point out that the like cannot be 
said of the planetary rotations. No such final cause can be 
assigned for the rapid axial movement of Jupiter and 
Saturn, or the slow axial movement of Mercury. If, 
however, in pursuance of the doctrine of transformation, 
we look for the antecedents of these gyrations which all 
planets exhibit, the nebular hypothesis furnishes us with 
antecedents which bear manifest quantitative relations to 
the motions displayed. For the planets that turn on their 
axes with extreme rapidity, are those having great masses 
and large orbits — those, that is, of which the once diffused 
elements moved to their centres of gravity through immense 
spaces, and so acquired high velocities. While, conversely, 
the planets which rotate with the smallest velocities, are 
those formed out of the smallest nebulous rings — a relation 
still better shown by satellites. 

" But what," it may be asked, " has in such case become 
of all that motion which brought about the aggregation of 
this diffused matter into solid bodies? " The answer is that 
it has been radiated in the form of heat and light ; and this 
answer the evidence, so far as it goes, confirms. Geologists 



TRANSFORMATION ADD EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 213 

conclude that the heat of the Earth's still molten nucleus is 
but a remnant of the heat which once made molten the 
entire Earth. The mountainous surfaces of the Moon and 
of Venus (which alone are near enough to be scrutinized), 
indicating, as they do, crusts that have, like our own, been 
corrugated by contraction, imply that these bodies too have 
undergone refrigeration. Lastly, we have in the Sun a still- 
continued production of this heat and light, which must 
result from the arrest of diffused matter moving towards a 
common centre of gravity. Here also, as before, a 

quantitative relation is traceable. Among the bodies which 
make up the Solar System, those containing comparatively 
small amounts of matter whose centripetal motion has been 
destroyed, have already lost nearly all the produced heat : a 
result which their relatively larger surfaces have facilitated. 
But the Sun, a thousand times as great in mass as the 
largest planet, and having therefore to give off an enormous- 
ly greater quantity of heat and light due to arrest of moving 
matter, is still radiating with great intensity. 

§ 69. If we inquire the origin of those forces which have 
wrought the surface of our planet into its present shape, we 
find them traceable to the primordial source just assigned. 
Assuming the solar system to have arisen as above supposed, 
then geologic changes are either direct or indirect results 
of the unexpended heat caused by nebular condensation. 
These changes are commonly divided into igneous and aque- 
ous — heads under which we may most conveniently con- 
sider them. 

All those periodic disturbances which we call earth- 
quakes, all those elevations and subsidences which they sev- 
erally produce, all those accumulated effects of many such 
elevations and subsidences exhibited in ocean-basins, islands, 
continents, table-lands, mountain-chains, and nil those for- 
mations which are distinguished as volcanic, geologists now 
regard as modifications of the Earth's crust produced by the 



214 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

still-molten matter occupying its interior. However unten- 
able may be the details of M. Elie de Beaumont's theory, 
there is good reason to accept the general proposition that 
the disruptions and variations of level which take place at 
intervals on the terrestrial surface, are due to the progressive 
collapse of the Earth's solid envelope upon its cooling and 
contracting nucleus. Even supposing that volcanic erup- 
tions, extrusions of igneous rock, and upheaved mountain 
chains, could be otherwise satisfactorily accounted for, 
which they cannot; it would be impossible otherwise to ac- 
count for those wide-spread elevations and depressions 
whence continents and oceans result. The conclusion to be 
drawn is, then, that the forces displayed in these so-called 
igneous changes, are derived positively or negatively from 
the unexpended heat of the Earth's interior. Such phenom- 
ena as the fusion or agglutination of sedimentary deposits, 
the warming of springs, the sublimation of metals into the 
fissures where we find them as ores, may be regarded as posi- 
tive results of this residuary heat; while fractures of strata 
and alterations of level are its negative results, since they 
ensue on its escape. The original cause of all these 
effects is still, however, as it has been from the first, 
the gravitating movement of the Earth's matter towards the 
Earth's centre; seeing that to this is due both the internal 
heat itself and the collapse which takes place as it is radiated 
into space. 

When we inquire under what forms previously existed 
the force which works out the geological changes classed as 
aqueous, the answer is less obvious. The effects of rain, of 
rivers, of winds, of waves, of marine currents, do not mani- 
festly proceed from one general source. Analysis, neverthe- 
less, proves to us that they have a common genesis. If we 
ask, — Whence comes the power of the river-current, bearing 
sediment down to the sea ? the reply is, — The gravitation of 
water throughout the tract which this river drains. If we 
ask, — How came the water to be dispersed over this tract? 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 215 

the reply is, — It fell in the shape of rain. If we ask, — How 
came the rain to be in that position whence it fell? the reply 
is, — The vapour from which it was condensed was drifted 
there by the winds. If we ask, — How came this vapour to 
be at that elevation ? the reply is, — It was raised by evapora- 
tion. And if we ask, — "What force thus raised it ? the reply 
is, — The sun's heat. Just that amount of gravitative force 
which the sun's heat overcame in raising the atoms of water, 
is given out again in the fall of those atoms to the same level. 
Hence the denudations effected by rain and rivers, during 
the descent of this condensed vapour to the level of the sea, 
are indirectly due to the sun's heat. Similarly with the 
winds that transport the vapours hither and thither. Con- 
sequent as atmospheric currents are on differences of tem- 
perature (either general, as between the equatorial and polar 
regions, or special as between tracts of the Earth's surface of 
unlike physical characters) all such currents are due to that 
source from which the varying quantities of heat proceed. 
And if the winds thus originate, so too do the waves raised 
by them on the sea's surface. Whence it follows that what- 
ever changes waves produce — the wearing away of shores, 
the breaking down of rocks into shingle, sand, and mud — 
are also traceable to the solar rays as their primary cause. 
The same may be said of ocean-currents. Generated as the 
larger ones are by the excess of heat which the ocean in 
tropical climates continually acquires from the Sun; and 
generated as the smaller ones are by minor local differences 
in the quantities of solar heat absorbed; it follows that the 
distribution of sediment and other geological processes 
which these marine currents effect, are affiliable upon the 
force which the sun radiates. The only aqueous agency 
otherwise originating is that of the tides — an agency which, 
equally with the others, is traceable to unexpended astro- 
nomical motion. But, making allowance for the changes 
which this works, we reach the conclusion that the slow 
wearing down of continents and gradual tilling up of seas, 



216 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

by rain, rivers, winds, waves, and ocean-streams, are the 
indirect effects of solar heat. 

Thus the inference forced on us by the doctrine of trans- 
formation, that the forces which have moulded and re- 
moulded the Earth's crust must have pre-existed under some 
other shape, presents no difficulty if nebular genesis be 
granted ; since this pre-supposes certain forces that are both 
adequate to the results, and cannot be expended without pro- 
ducing the results. We see that while the geological 
changes classed as igneous, arise from the still-progressing 
motion of the Earth's substance to its centre of gravity; the 
antagonistic changes classed as aqueous, arise from the still- 
progressing motion of the Sun's substance towards its centre 
of gravity — a motion which, transformed into heat and radi- 
ated to us, is here re-transformed, directly into motions of the 
gaseous and liquid matters on the Earth's surface, and indi- 
rectly into motions of the solid matters. 

§ 70. That the forces exhibited in vital actions, vegetal 
and animal, are similarly derived, is so obvious a deduction 
from the facts of organic chemistry, that it will meet with 
ready acceptance from readers acquainted with these facts. 
Let us note first the physiological generalizations; and then 
the generalizations which they necessitate. 

Plant-life is all directly or indirectly dependent on the 
heat and light of the sun — directly dependent in the im- 
mense majority of plants, and indirectly dependent in plants 
which, as the fungi, flourish in the dark: since these, grow- 
ing as they do at the expense of decaying organic matter, 
mediately draw their forces from the same original source. 
Each plant owes the carbon and hydrogen of which it mainly 
consists, to the carbonic acid and water contained in the sur- 
rounding air and earth. The carbonic acid and water must, 
however, be decomposed before their carbon and hydrogen 
can be assimilated. To overcome the powerful affinities 
which hold their elements together, requires the expenditure 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 217 

of force; and this force is supplied by the Sun. In what 
manner the decomposition is effected we do not know. But 
we know that when, under fit conditions, plants are exposed 
to the Sun's rays, they give off oxygen and accumulate car- 
bon and hydrogen. In darkness this process ceases. It 
ceases too when the quantities of light and heat received are 
greatly reduced, as in winter. Conversely, it is active when 
the light and heat are great, as in summer. And the like re- 
lation is seen in the fact that while plant-life is luxuriant in 
the tropics, it diminishes in temperate regions, and disap- 
pears as we approach the poles. Thus the irresistible infer- 
ence is, that the forces by which plants abstract the materi- 
als of their tissues from surrounding inorganic compounds — 
the forces by which they grow and carry on their functions, 
are forces that previously existed as solar radiations. 

That animal life is immediately or mediately dependent 
on vegetal life is a familiar truth ; and that, in the main, the 
processes of animal life are opposite to those of vegetal life is 
a truth long current among men of science. Chemically 
considered, vegetal life is chiefly a process of de-oxidation, 
and animal life chiefly a process of oxidation: chiefly, we 
must say, because in so far as plants are expenders of force 
for the purposes of organization, they are oxidizers (as is 
shown by the exhalation of carbonic acid during the night) ; 
and animals, in some of their minor processes, are probably 
de-oxidizers. But with this qualification, the general truth 
is that while the plant, decomposing carbonic acid and water 
and liberating oxygen, builds up the detained carbon and 
hydrogen (along with a little nitrogen and small quantities 
of other elements elsewhere obtained) into branches, leaves, 
and seeds; the animal, consuming these branches, leaves, 
and seeds, and absorbing oxygen, recomposes car- 
bonic acid and water, together with certain nitrogenous 
compounds in minor amounts. And while the decom- 
position effected by the plant, is at the expense of certain 
forces emanating from the sun, which are employed in 
1G 



218 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

overcoming the affinities of carbon and hydrogen for the 
oxygen united with them ; the re-composition effected by the 
animal, is at the profit of these forces, which are liberated 
during the combination of such elements. Thus the move- 
ments, internal and external, of the animal, are re-appear- 
ances in new forms of a power absorbed by the plant under 
the shape of light and heat. Just as, in the manner above 
explained, the solar forces expended in raising vapour from 
the sea's surface, are given out again in the fall of rain and 
rivers to the same level, and in the accompanying transfer of 
solid matters ; so, the solar forces that in the plant raised cer- 
tain chemical elements to a condition of unstable equilibri- 
um, are given out again in the actions of the animal dur- 
ing the fall of these elements to a condition of stable equi- 
librium. 

Besides thus tracing a qualitative correlation between 
these two great orders of organic activity, as well as between 
both of them and inorganic agencies, we may rudely trace a 
quantitative correlation. Where vegetal life is abundant, 
we usually find abundant animal life; and as we advance 
from torrid to temperate and frigid climates, the two de- 
crease together. Speaking generally, the animals of each 
class reach a larger size in regions where vegetation is 
abundant, than in those where it is sparse. And further, 
there is a tolerably apparent connexion between the quan- 
tity of energy which each species of animal expends, and the 
quantity of force which the nutriment it absorbs gives out 
during oxidation. 

Certain phenomena of development in both plants and 
animals, illustrate still more directly the ultimate truth 
enunciated. Pursuing the suggestion made by Mr. Grove, 
in the first edition of his work on the " Correlation of the 
Physical Forces," that a connexion probably exists between 
the forces classed as vital and those classed as physical, 
Dr. Carpenter has pointed out that such a connexion is 
clearly exhibited during incubation. The transformation of 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 219 

the unorganized contents of an egg into the organized chick, 
is altogether a question of heat : withhold heat and the pro- 
cess does not commence; supply heat and it goes on while 
the temperature is maintained, but ceases when the egg is al- 
lowed to cool. The developmental changes can be completed 
only by keeping the temperature with tolerable constancy at 
a definite height for a definite time ; that is — only by supply- 
ing a definite quantity of heat. In the metamorphoses of 
insects we may discern parallel facts. Experiments show 
not only that the hatching of their eggs is determined by 
temperature, but also that the evolution of the pupa into the 
imago is similarly determined; and may be immensely ac- 
celerated or retarded according as heat is artificially supplied 
or withheld. It will suffice just to add that the germination 
of plants presents like relations of cause and effect — relations 
so similar that detail is superfluous. 

Thus then the various changes exhibited to us by the 
organic creation, whether considered as a whole, or in its two 
great divisions, or in its individual members, conform, so far 
as we can ascertain, to the general principle. Where, as in 
the transformation of an egg into a chick, we can investigate 
the phenomena apart from all complications, we find that the 
force manifested in the process of organisation, involves 
expenditure of a pre-existing force. Where it is not, as 
in the egg or the chrysalis, merely the change of a fixed 
quantity of matter into a new shape, but where, as in the 
growing plant or animal, we have an incorporation of mat- 
ter existing outside, there is still a pre-existing external force 
at the cost of which this incorporation is effected. And 
where, as in the higher division of organisms, there remain 
over and above the forces expended in organization, certain 
surplus forces expended in movement, these too are indirect- 
ly derived from this same pre-existing external force. 

§ 71. Even after all that has been -aid in the foregoing 
part of this work, many will be alarmed by the assertion, 



220 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES.. 

that the forces which we distinguish as mental, come within 
the same generalization. Yet there is no alternative but to 
make this assertion: the facts which justify, or rather which 
necessitate it, being abundant and conspicuous. They fall 
into the following groups. 

All impressions from moment to moment made on our 
organs of sense, stand in direct correlation with physical 
forces existing externally. The modes of consciousness 
called pressure, motion, sound, light, heat, are effects pro- 
duced in us by agencies which, as otherwise expended, crush 
or fracture pieces of matter, generate vibrations in surround- 
ing objects, cause chemical combinations, and reduce sub- 
stances from a solid to a liquid form. Hence if we regard 
the changes of relative position, of aggregation, or of chem- 
ical state, thus arising, as being transformed manifestations 
of the agencies from which they arise ; so must we regard the 
sensations which such agencies produce in us, as new forms 
of the forces producing them. Any hesitation to admit 

that, between the physical forces and the sensations there 
exists a correlation like that between the physical forces 
themselves, must disappear on remembering how the one 
correlation, like the other, is not qualitative only but quanti- 
tative. Masses of matter which, by scales or dynamo- 
meter, are shown to differ greatly in weight, differ as greatly 
in the feelings of pressure they produce on our bodies. In 
arresting moving objects, the strains we are conscious of are 
proportionate to the momenta of such objects as otherwise 
measured. Under like conditions the impressions of sounds 
given to us by vibrating strings, bells, or columns of air, are 
found to vary in strength with the amount of force applied. 
Fluids or solids proved to be markedly contrasted in tem- 
perature by the different degrees of expansion they produce 
in the mercurial column, produce in us correspondingly dif- 
ferent degrees of the sensation of heat. And similarly un- 
like intensities in our impressions of light, answer to un- 
like effects as measured by photometers. 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 221 

Besides the correlation and equivalence between exter- 
nal physical forces, and the mental forces generated by them 
in us under the form of sensations, there is a correlation and 
equivalence between sensations and those physical forces 
which, in the shape of bodily actions, result from them. 
The feelings we distinguish as light, heat, sound, odour, 
taste, pressure, &c, do not die away without immediate re- 
sults; but are invariably followed by other manifestations 
of force. In addition to the excitements of secreting organs, 
that are in some cases traceable, there arises a contraction of 
the involuntary muscles, or of the voluntary muscles, or of 
both. Sensations increase the action of the heart — slightly 
when they are slight ; markedly when they are marked ; and 
recent physiological inquiries imply not only that contrac- 
tion of the heart is excited by every sensation, but also that 
the muscular fibres throughout the whole vascular system, 
are at the same time more or less contracted. The respira- 
tory muscles, too, are stimulated into greater activity by 
sensations. The rate of breathing is visibly and audibly 
augmented both by pleasurable and painful impressions on 
the nerves, when these reach any intensity. It has even of 
late been shown that inspiration becomes more frequent on 
transition from darkness into sunshine, — a result probably 
due to the increased amount of direct and indirect nervous 
stimulation involved. When the quantity of sensation is 
great, it generates contractions of the voluntary muscles, as 
well as of the involuntary ones. Unusual excitement of the 
nerves of touch, as by tickling, is followed by almost incon- 
trollable movements of the limbs. Violent pains cause vio- 
lent struggles. The start succeeds a loud sound, the wry 
face produced by the taste of anything extremely disagree- 
able, the jerk with which the hand or foot is snatched out 
of water that is very hot, are instances of the transforma- 
tion of feeling into motion; and in these cases, as in all oth- 
ers, it is manifest that the quantity of bodily action is pro- 
portionate to the quantity of sensation. Even where from 



222 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

pride there is a suppression of the screams and groans ex- 
pressive of great pain (also indirect results of muscular con- 
traction), we may still see in the clenching of the hands, 
the knitting of the brows, and the setting of the teeth, that 
the bodily actions developed are as great, though less ob- 
trusive in their results. If we take emotions instead 
of sensations, we find the correlation and equivalence 
equally manifest. Not only are the modes of consciousness 
directly produced in us by physical forces, re-transformable 
into physical forces under the form of muscular motions 
and the changes they initiate; but the like is true of those 
modes of consciousness which are not directly produced in 
us by the physical forces. Emotions of moderate intensity, 
like sensations of moderate intensity, generate little beyond 
excitement of the heart and vascular system, joined some- 
times with increased action of glandular organs. But as 
the emotions rise in strength, the muscles of the face, body, 
and limbs, begin to move. Of examples may be mentioned 
the frowns, dilated nostrils, and stampings of anger; the 
contracted brows, and wrung hands, of grief; the smiles 
and leaps of joy; and the frantic struggles of terror or de- 
spair. Passing over certain apparent, but only apparent, 
exceptions, we see that whatever be the kind of emotion, 
there is a manifest relation between its amount, and the 
amount of muscular action induced: alike from the erect 
carriage and elastic step of exhilaration, up to the dancings 
of immense delight, and from the fidgettiness of impatience 
up to the almost convulsive movements accompanying great 
mental agony. To these several orders of evidence 
must be joined the further one, that between our feelings 
and those voluntary motions into which they are trans- 
formed, there comes the sensation of muscular tension, 
standing in manifest correlation with both — a correlation 
that is distinctly quantitative: the sense of strain varying, 
other things equal, directly as the quantity of momentum 
generated. 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 223 

" But how," it may be asked, " can we interpret by the 
law of correlation the genesis of those thoughts and feelings 
which, instead of following external stimuli, arise spontane- 
ously? Between the indignation caused by an insult, and 
the loud sounds or violent acts that follow, the alleged con- 
nexion may hold; but whence come the crowd of ideas and 
the mass of feelings that expend themselves in these demon- 
strations? They are clearly not equivalents of the sensa- 
tions produced by the words on the ears ; for the same words 
otherwise arranged, would not have caused them. The 
thing said bears to the mental action it excites, much the 
same relation that the pulling of the trigger bears to the 
subsequent explosion — does not produce the power, but 
merely liberates it. Whence then arises this immense 
amount of nervous energy which a whisper or a glance may 
call forth? " The reply is, that the immediate cor- 

relates of these and other such modes of consciousness, 
are not to be found in the agencies acting on us externally, 
but in certain internal agencies. The forces called vital, 
which we have seen to be correlates of the forces called 
physical, are the immediate sources of these thoughts and 
feelings; and are expended in producing them. The proofs 
of this are various. Here are some of them. It is a 

conspicuous fact that mental action is contingent on the 
presence of a certain nervous apparatus; and that, greatly 
obscured as it is by numerous and involved conditions, a 
general relation may be traced between the size of this appa- 
ratus and the quantity of mental action as measured by its 
results. Further, this apparatus has a particular chemical 
constitution on which its activity depends; and there is one 
element in it between the amount of which and the amount 
of function performed, there is an ascertained connexion: 
the proportion of phosphorus present in the brain being the 
smallest in infancy, old age and idiotcv, and the greatest 
during the prime of life. Note next, thai the evo- 

lution of thought and emotion varies, other things equal, 



22i TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

with the supply of blood to the brain. On the one hand, a 
cessation of the cerebral circulation, from arrest of the 
heart's action, immediately entails unconsciousness. On the 
other hand, excess of cerebral circulation (unless it is such 
as to cause undue pressure) results in an excitement rising 
finally to delirium. Not the quantity only, but 

also the condition of the blood passing through the nervous 
system, influences the mental manifestations. The arterial 
currents must be duly aerated, to produce the normal 
amount of cerebration. At the one extreme, we find that if 
the blood is not allowed to exchange its carbonic acid for 
oxygen, there results asphyxia, with its accompanying stop- 
page of ideas and feelings. While at the other extreme, we 
find that by the inspiration of nitrous oxide, there is pro- 
duced an excessive, and indeed irrepressible, nervous ac- 
tivity. Besides the connexion between the develop- 
ment of the mental forces and the presence of sufficient 
oxygen in the cerebral arteries, there is a kindred connexion 
between the development of the mental forces and the pres- 
ence in the cerebral arteries of certain other elements. 
There must be supplied special materials for the nutrition of 
the nervous centres, as well as for their oxidation. And 
how what we may call the quantity of consciousness, is, other 
things equal, determined by the constituents of the blood, is 
unmistakeably seen in the exaltation that follows when cer- 
tain chemical compounds, as alcohol and the vegeto-alkalies, 
are added to it. The gentle exhilaration which tea and 
coffee create, is familiar to all; and though the gorgeous 
imaginations and intense feelings of happiness produced by 
opium and hashish, have been experienced by few, (in this 
country at least,) the testimony of those who have experi- 
enced them is sufficiently conclusive. Yet another 
proof that the genesis of the mental energies is immediately 
dependent on chemical change, is afforded by the fact, that 
the effete products separated from the blood by the kid- 
neys, vary in character with the amount of cerebral action. 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 225 

Excessive activity of mind is habitually accompanied by the 
excretion of an unusual quantity of the alkaline phosphates. 
Conditions of abnormal nervous excitement bring on analo- 
gous effects. And the " peculiar odour of the insane," im- 
plying as it does morbid products in the perspiration, shows 
a connexion between insanity and a special composition of 
the circulating fluids — a composition which, whether re- 
garded as cause or consequence, equally implies correlation 
of the mental and the physical forces. Lastly we 

have to note that this correlation too, is, so far as we can trace 
it, quantitative. Provided the conditions to nervous action 
are not infringed on, and the concomitants are the same, 
there is a tolerably constant ratio between the amounts of 
the antecedents and consequents. Within the implied lim- 
its, nervous stimulants and anaesthetics produce effects on 
the thoughts and feelings, proportionate to the quantities 
administered. And conversely, where the thoughts and 
feelings form the initial term of the relation, the degree of 
reaction on the bodily energies is great, in proportion as they 
are great: reaching in extreme cases a total prostration of 
physique. 

Various classes of facts thus unite to prove that the law 
of metamorphosis, which holds among the physical forces, 
holds equally between them and the mental forces. Those 
modes of the Unknowable which we call motion, heat, light, 
chemical affinity, &c, are alike transformable into each 
other, and into those modes of the Unknowable which we 
distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought: these, in their 
turns, being directly or indirectly re-transformable into 
the original shapes. That no idea or feeling arises, save 
as a result of some physical force expended in producing 
it, is fast becoming a common place of science; and whoever 
duly weighs the evidence will see, that nothing but an over- 
whelming bias in favour of a pre-conceived theory, can ex- 
plain its non-acceptance. How this metamorphosis 
takes place — how a force existing as motion, heat, or light, 



226 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

can become a mode of consciousness — how it is possible for 
aerial vibrations to generate the sensation we call sound, or 
for the forces liberated by chemical changes in the brain 
to give rise to emotion — these are mysteries which it is im- 
possible to fathom. But they are not prof ounder mysteries 
than the transformations of the physical forces into each 
other. They are not more completely beyond our compre- 
hension than the natures of Mind and Matter. They have 
simply the same insolubility as all other ultimate questions. 
We can learn nothing more than that here is one of the uni- 
formities in the order of phenomena. 

§ 72. If the general law of transformation and equiva- 
lence holds of the forces we class as vital and mental, it must 
hold also of those which we class as social. Whatever takes 
place in a society is due to organic or inorganic agencies, or 
to a combination of the two — results either from the undi- 
rected physical forces around, from these physical forces as 
directed by men, or from the forces of the men themselves. 
~No change can occur in its organization, its mode of activity, 
or the effects it produces on the face of the Earth, but what 
proceeds, mediately or immediately, from these. Let us con- 
sider first the correlation between the phenomena which 
societies display, and the vital phenomena. 

Social power and life varies, other things equal, with the 
population. Though different races, differing widely in 
their fitness for combination, show us that the forces mani- 
fested in a society are not necessarily proportionate to the 
number of people; yet we see that under given conditions, 
the forces manifested are confined within the limits which 
the number of people imposes. A small society, no matter 
how superior the character of its members, cannot exhibit 
the same quantity of social action as a large one. The pro- 
duction and distribution of commodities must be on a com- 
paratively small scale. A multitudinous press, a prolific lit- 
erature, or a massive political agitation, is not possible. And 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 227 

there can be but a small total of results in the shape of art- 
products and scientific discoveries. The correlation 
of the social with the physical forces through the inter- 
mediation of the vital ones, is, however, most clearly shown 
in the different amounts of activity displayed by the same 
society according as its members are supplied with different 
amounts of force from the external world. In the effects of 
good and bad harvests, we yearly see this relation illustrated. 
A greatly deficient yield of wheat is soon followed by a 
diminution of business. Factories are worked half-time, or 
close entirely; railway traffic falls; retailers find their sales 
much lessened; house-building is almost suspended; and if 
the scarcity rises to famine, a thinning of the population still 
more diminishes the industrial vivacity. Conversely, an 
unusually abundant harvest, occurring under conditions not 
otherwise unfavourable, both excites the old producing and 
distributing agencies and sets up new ones. The surplus so- 
cial energy finds vent in speculative enterprises. Capital 
seeking investment carries out inventions that have been 
lying unutilized. Labour is expended in opening new chan- 
nels of communication. There is increased encouragement 
to those who furnish the luxuries of life and minister to the 
aesthetic faculties. There are more marriages, and a greater 
rate of increase in population. Thus the social organism 
grows larger, more complex, and more active. When, 
as happens with most civilized nations, the whole of the ma- 
terials for subsistence are not drawn from the area inhabited, 
but are partly imported, the people are still supported by 
certain harvests elsewhere grown at the expense of certain 
physical forces. Our own cotton-spinners and weavers 
supply the most conspicuous instance of a section in 
one nation living, in great part, on imported commodi- 
ties, purchased by the labour they expend on other im- 
ported commodities. But though the social activities 
of Lancashire are due chiefly to materials not drawn 
from our own soil, they are none the less evolved from 



228 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

physical forces elsewhere stored up in fit forms and then 
brought here. 

If we ask whence come these physical forces from which, 
through the intermediation of the vital forces, the social 
forces arise, the reply is of course as heretofore — the solar 
radiations. Based as the life of a society is on animal and 
vegetal products; and dependent as these animal and vegetal 
products are on the light and heat of the sun; it follows that 
the changes going on in societies are effects of forces having 
a common origin with those which produce all the other 
orders of changes that have been analyzed. Not only is the 
force expended by the horse harnessed to the plough, and by 
the labourer guiding it, derived from the same reservoir 
as is the force of the falling cataract and the roaring hurri- 
cane; but to this same reservoir are eventually traceable 
those subtler and more complex manifestations of force 
which humanity, as socially embodied, evolves. The asser- 
tion is a startling one, and by many will be thought ludi- 
crous ; but it is an unavoidable deduction which cannot here 
be passed over. 

Of the physical forces that are directly transformed into 
social ones, the like is to be said. Currents of air and water, 
which before the use of steam were the only agencies 
brought in aid of muscular effort for the performance of in- 
dustrial processes, are, as we have seen, generated by the 
heat of the sun. And the inanimate power that now, to so 
vast an extent, supplements human labour, is similarly de- 
rived. The late George Stephenson was one of the first to 
recognize the fact that the force impelling his locomotive, 
originally emanated from the sun. Step by step we go back 
— from the motion of the piston to the evaporation of the 
water; thence to the heat evolved during the oxidation of 
coal; thence to the assimilation of carbon by the plants of 
whose imbedded remains coal consists; thence to the car- 
bonic acid from which their carbon was obtained; and 
thence to the rays of light that de-oxidized this carbonic 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 229 

acid. Solar forces millions of years ago expended on the 
Earth's vegetation, and since locked up beneath its surface, 
now smelt the metals required for our machines, turn the 
lathes by which the machines are shaped, work them when 
put together, and distribute the fabrics they produce. And 
in so far as economy of labour makes possible the support 
of a larger population ; gives a surplus of human power that 
would else be absorbed in manual occupations ; and it facili- 
tates the development of higher kinds of activity ; it is clear 
that these social forces which are directly correlated with 
physical forces anciently derived from the sun, are only 
less important than those whose correlates are the vital forces 
recently derived from it. 

§ 73. Regarded as an induction, the doctrine set forth in 
this chapter will most likely be met by a demurrer. Many 
who admit that among physical phenomena at least, trans- 
formation of forces is now established, will probably say that 
inquiry has not yet gone far enough to enable us to predicate 
equivalence. And in respect of the forces classed as vital, 
mental, and social, the evidence assigned, however little to 
be explained away, they will consider by no means conclu- 
sive even of transformation, much less of equivalence. 

To those who think thus, it must now however be pointed 
out, that the universal truth above illustrated under its vari- 
ous aspects, is a necessary corollary from the persistence 
of force. Setting out with the proposition that force can 
neither come into existence, nor cease to exist, the several 
foregoing general conclusions inevitably follow. Each 
manifestation of force can be interpreted only as the effect 
of some antecedent force: no matter whether it be an inor- 
ganic action, an animal movement, a thought, or a feeling. 
Either this must be conceded, or else it must be asserted that 
our successive states of consciousness are self-created. Either 
mental energies, as well as bodily ones, arc quantitatively 
correlated to certain energies expended in their production, 



230 TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 

and to certain other energies which they initiate; or else 
nothing must become something and something must be- 
come nothing. The alternatives are, to deny the persistence 
of force, or to admit that every physical and psychical 
change is generate^ by certain antecedent forces, and that 
from given amounts of such forces neither more nor less of 
such physical and psychical changes can result. And since 
the persistence of force, being a datum of conscious- 
ness, cannot be denied, its unavoidable corollary must be 
accepted. This corollary cannot indeed be made 

more certain by accumulating illustrations. The truth as 
arrived at deductively, cannot be inductively confirmed. 
For every one of such facts as those above detailed, is estab- 
lished only through the indirect assumption of that persist- 
ence of force, from which it really follows as a direct conse- 
quence. The most exact proof of correlation and equiva- 
lence which it is possible to reach by experimental inquiry, 
is that based on measurement of the forces expended and the 
forces produced. But, as was shown in the last chapter, any 
such process of measurement implies the use of some unit of 
force which is assumed to remain constant; and for this as- 
sumption there can be no warrant but that it is a corollary 
from the persistence of force. How then can any reasoning 
based on this corollary, prove the equally direct corollary 
that when a given quantity of force ceases to exist under one 
form, an equal quantity must come into existence under 
some other form or forms? Clearly the d priori truth ex- 
pressed in this last corollary, cannot be more firmly estab- 
lished by any a posteriori proofs which the first corollary 
helps us to. 

" What then," it may be asked, " is the use of these in- 
vestigations by which transformation and equivalence of 
forces is sought to be established as an inductive truth? 
Surely it will not be alleged that they are useless. Yet if 
the correlation cannot be made more certain by them than 
it is already, does not their uselessness necessarily follow? " 



TRANSFORMATION AND EQUIVALENCE OF FORCES. 231 

No. They are of value as disclosing the many particular 
implications which the general truth does not specify. They 
are of value as teaching us how much of one mode of force 
is the equivalent of so much of another mode. They are of 
value as determining under what conditions each metamor- 
phosis occurs. And they are of value as leading us to inquire 
in what shape the remnant of force has escaped, when the 
apparent results are not equivalent to the cause. 



CHAPTEK IX. 

THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

§ 74. The Absolute Cause of changes, no matter what 
may be their special natures, is" not less incomprehensible in 
respect of the unity or duality of its action, than in all other 
respects. We cannot decide between the alternative supposi- 
tions, that phenomena are due to the variously-conditioned 
workings of a single force, and that they are due to the con- 
flict of two forces. Whether, as some contend, everything is 
explicable on the hypothesis of universal pressure, whence 
what we call tension results differentially from inequalities 
of pressure in opposite directions; or whether, as might be 
with equal propriety contended, things are to be explained 
on the hypothesis of universal tension, from which pressure 
is a differential result; or whether, as most physicists hold, 
pressure and tension everywhere co-exist; are questions 
which it is impossible to settle. Each of these three suppo- 
sitions makes the facts comprehensible, only by postulating 
an inconceivability. To assume a universal pressure, con- 
fessedly requires us to assume an infinite plenum — an un- 
limited space full of something which is everywhere pressed 
by something beyond; and this assumption cannot be men- 
tally realized. That universal tension is the immediate 
agency to which phenomena are due, is an idea open to a 
parallel and equally fatal objection. And however verbally 
intelligible may be the proposition that pressure and tension 

everywhere co-exist, yet we cannot truly represent to our- 

232 



THE DIRECTION OP MOTION. 233 

selves one ultimate unit of matter as drawing another while 
resisting it. 

iSTevertheless, this last belief is one which we are com- 
pelled to entertain. Matter cannot be conceived except as 
manifesting forces of attraction and repulsion. Body is dis- 
tinguished in our consciousness from Space, by its opposition 
to our muscular energies ; and this opposition we feel under 
the twofold form of a cohesion that hinders our efforts to 
rend, and a resistance that hinders our efforts to compress. 
Without resistance there can be merely empty extension. 
Without cohesion there can be no resistance. Probably this 
conception of antagonistic forces, is originally derived from 
the antagonism of our flexor and extensor muscles. But be 
this as it may, we are obliged to think of all objects as made 
up of parts that attract and repel each other; since this is the 
form of our experience of all objects. 

By a higher abstraction results the conception of attrac- 
tive and repulsive forces pervading space. We cannot dis- 
sociate force from occupied extension, or occupied extension 
from force ; because we have never an immediate conscious- 
ness of either in the absence of the other. Nevertheless, we 
have abundant proof that force is exercised through what 
appears to our senses a vacuity. Mentally to represent this 
exercise, we are hence obliged to fill the apparent vacuity 
with a species of matter — an etherial medium. The consti- 
tution we assign to this etherial medium, however, like the 
constitution we assign to solid substance, is necessarily an 
abstract of the impressions received from tangible bodies. 
The opposition to pressure which a tangible body offers to us, 
is not shown in one direction only, but in all directions; and 
so likewise is its tenacity. Suppose countless lines radiating 
from its centre on every side, and it resists along eacli of 
these lines and coheres along each of these lines. Hence the 
constitution of those ultimate units through the instrumen- 
tality of which phenomena are interpreted. Be they atoms 
of ponderable matter or molecules of ether, the properties 
17 



234 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

we conceive them to possess are nothing else than these per- 
ceptible properties idealized. Centres of force attracting 
and repelling each other in all directions, are simply insensi- 
ble portions of matter having the endowments common to 
sensible portions of matter— endowments of which we can- 
not by any mental effort divest them. In brief, they are 
the invariable elements of the conception of matter, abstract- 
ed from its variable elements — size, form, quality, &c. And 
so to interpret manifestations of force which cannot be tac- 
tually experienced, we use the terms of thought supplied 
by our tactual experiences : and this for the sufficient reason 
that we must use these or none. 

After all that has been before shown, and after the hint 
given above, it needs scarcely be said that these universally 
co-existent forces of attraction and repulsion, must not be 
taken as realities, but as our symbols of the reality. They 
are the forms under which the workings of the Unknowable 
are cognizable by us — modes of the Unconditioned as pre- 
sented under the conditions of our consciousness. But while 
knowing that the ideas thus generated in us are not absolute- 
ly true, we may unreservedly surrender ourselves to them as 
relatively true ; and may proceed to evolve a series of deduc- 
tions having a like relative truth. 

§ 75. From universally co-existent forces of attraction 
and repulsion, there result certain laws of direction of all 
movement. Where attractive forces alone are concerned, or 
rather are alone appreciable, movement takes place in the 
direction of their resultant; which may, in a sense, be 
called the line of greatest traction. Where repulsive forces 
alone are concerned, or rather are alone appreciable, move- 
ment takes place along their resultant; which is usually 
known as the line of least resistance. And where both at- 
tractive and repulsive forces are concerned, or are apprecia- 
ble, movement takes place along the resultant of all the 
tractions and resistances. Strictly speaking, this last is the 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 235 

sole law; since, by the hypothesis, both forces are every- 
where in action. But very frequently the one kind of force 
is so immensely in excess that the effect of the other kind 
may be left out of consideration. Practically we may say 
that a body falling to the Earth, follows the line of great- 
est traction; since, though the resistance of the air must, if 
the body be irregular, cause some divergence from this line, 
(quite perceptible with feathers and leaves,) yet ordinarily 
the divergence is so slight that we may omit it. In the same 
manner, though the course taken by the steam from an ex- 
ploding boiler, differs somewhat from that which it would 
take were gravitation out of the question ; yet, as gravitation 
affects its course innnitesimally, we are justified in asserting 
that the escaping steam follows the line of least resistance. 
Motion then, we may say, always follows the line of great- 
est traction, or the line of least resistance, or the resultant 
of the two: bearing in mind that though the last is alone 
strictly true, the others are in many cases sufficiently near 
the truth for practical purposes. 

Movement set up in any direction is itself a cause of fur- 
ther movement in that direction, since it is the embodiment 
of a surplus force in that direction. This holds equally with 
the transit of matter through space, the transit of matter 
through matter, and the transit through matter of any kind 
of vibration. In the case of matter moving through space, 
this principle is expressed in the law of inertia — a law on 
which the calculations of physical astronomy are wholly 
based. In the case of matter moving through matter, we 
trace the same truth under the familiar experience that any 
breach made by one solid through another, or any chan- 
nel formed by a fluid through a solid, becomes a 
rout along which, other things equal, subsequent move- 
ments of like nature take place. And in the case of mo- 
tion passing through matter under the form of an im- 
pulse communicated from part to part, the facts of mag- 
netization go to show that the establishment of undulations 



236 THE DIRECTION OP MOTION. 

along certain lines, determines their continuance along 
those lines. 

It further follows from the conditions, that the direction 
of movement can rarely if ever be perfectly straight. For 
matter in motion to pursue continuously the exact line in 
which it sets out, the forces of attraction and repulsion must 
be symmetrically disposed around its path ; and the chances 
against this are infinitely great. The impossibility of mak- 
ing an absolutely true edge to a bar of metal — the fact 
that all which can be done by the best mechanical appli- 
ances, is to reduce the irregularities of such an edge to 
amounts that cannot be perceived without magnifiers — suffi- 
ciently exemplifies how, in consequence of the unsymmetri- 
cal distribution of forces around the line of movement, the 
movement is rendered more or less indirect. It 

may be well to add that in proportion as the forces at work 
are numerous and varied, the curve a moving body describes 
is necessarily complex: witness the contrast between the 
flight of an arrow and the gyrations of a stick tossed about 
by breakers. 

As a step towards unification of knowledge we have now 
to trace these general laws throughout the various orders of 
changes which the Cosmos exhibits. We have to note how 
every motion takes place along the line of greatest traction, 
of least resistance, or of their resultant ; how the setting up 
of motion along a certain line, becomes a cause of its con- 
tinuance along that line ; how, nevertheless, change of rela- 
tions to external forces, always renders this line indirect ; and 
how the degree of its indirectness increases with every addi- 
tion to the number of influences at work. 

§ 76. If we assume the first stage in nebular condensa- 
tion to be the precipitation into flocculi of denser matter pre- 
viously diffused through a rarer medium, (a supposition both 
physically justified, and in harmony with certain astronomi- 
cal observations,) we shall find that nebular motion is inter- 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION". 237 

pretable in pursuance of the above general laws. Each por- 
tion of such vapour-like matter must begin to move towards 
the common centre of gravity. The tractive forces which 
would of themselves carry it in a straight line to the centre 
of gravity, are opposed by the resistant forces of the medium 
through which it is drawn. The direction of movement 
must be the resultant of these — a resultant which, in conse- 
quence of the unsymmetrical form of the flocculus, must be 
a curve directed, not to the centre of gravity, but towards 
one side of it. And it may be readily shown that in an aggre- 
gation of such flocculi, severally thus moving, there must, 
by composition of forces, eventually result a rotation of the 
whole nebula in one direction. 

Merely noting this hypothetical illustration for the pur- 
pose of showing how the law applies to the case of nebular 
evolution, supposing it to have taken place, let us pass to 
the phenomena of the Solar System as now exhibited. Here 
the general principles above set forth are every instant ex- 
emplified. Each planet and satellite has a momentum which 
would, if acting alone, carry it forward in the direction it is 
at any instant pursuing. This momentum hence acts as a 
resistance to motion in any other direction. Each planet 
and satellite, however, is drawn by a force which, if unop- 
posed, would take it in a straight line towards its primary. 
And the resultant of these two forces is that curve which it 
describes — a curve manifestly consequent on the unsym- 
metrical distribution of the forces around its path. This 
path, when more closely examined, supplies us with further 
illustrations. For it is not an exact circle or ellipse; which 
it would be were the tangential and centripetal forces the 
only ones concerned. Adjacent members of the Solar Sys- 
tem, ever varying in their relative positions, cause what we 
call perturbations; that is,sKgh1 divergences in various direc- 
tions from that circle or ellipse which the two chief forces 
would produce. These perturbations severally show us in 
minor degrees, how the line of movement is the resultant 



238 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

of all the forces engaged; and how this line becomes 
more complicated in proportion as the forces are multi- 
plied. If instead of the motions of the planets and satel- 
lites as wholes, we consider the motions of their parts, we 
meet with comparatively complex illustrations. Every por- 
tion of the Earth's substance in its daily rotation, describes a 
curve which is in the main a resultant of that resistance 
which checks its nearer approach to the centre of gravity, 
that momentum which would carry it off at a tangent, and 
those forces of gravitation and cohesion which keep it from 
being so carried off. If this axial motion be compounded 
with the orbital motion, the course of each part is seen to be 
a much more involved one. And we find it to have a still 
greater complication on taking into account that lunar at- 
traction which mainly produces the tides and the precession 
of the equinoxes. 

§ 77. We come next to terrestrial changes: present ones 
as observed, and past ones as inferred by geologists. Let us 
set out with the hourly-occurring alterations in the Earth's 
atmosphere ; descend to the slower alterations in progress on 
its surface; and then to the still slower ones going on be- 
neath. 

Masses of air, absorbing heat from surfaces warmed by 
the sun, expand, and so lessen the weight of the atmospheric 
columns of which they are parts. Hence they offer to ad- 
jacent atmospheric columns, diminished lateral resistance; 
and these, moving in the directions of the diminished resist- 
ance, displace the expanded air ; while this, pursuing an up- 
ward course, displays a motion along that line in which there 
is least pressure. When again, by the ascent of such heated 
masses from extended areas like the torrid zone, there is pro- 
duced at the upper surface of the atmosphere, a protuber- 
ance beyond the limits of equilibrium — when the air form- 
ing this protuberance begins to overflow laterally towards 
the poles; it does so because, while the tractive force of the 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 239 

Earth is nearly the same, the lateral resistance is greatly 
diminished. And throughout the course of each current 
thus generated, as well as throughout the course of each 
counter-current flowing into the vacuum that is left, the 
direction is always the resultant of the Earth's tractive force 
and the resistance offered by the surrounding masses of air : 
modified only by conflict with other currents similarly de- 
termined, and by collision with prominences on the Earth's 
crust. The movements of water, in both its gaseous 

and liquid states, furnish further examples. In conform- 
ity with the mechanical theory of heat, it may be shown 
that evaporation is the escape of particles of water in the 
direction of least resistance; and that as the resistance 
(which is due to the pressure of the water diffused in a gase- 
ous state) diminishes, the evaporation increases. Converse- 
ly, that rushing together of particles called condensation, 
which takes place when any portion of atmospheric vapour 
has its temperature much lowered, may be interpreted as a 
diminution of the mutual pressure among the condensing 
particles, while the pressure of surrounding particles re- 
mains the same ; and so is a motion taking place in the direc- 
tion of lessened resistance. In the course followed by the 
resulting rain-drops, we have one of the simplest instances 
of the joint effect of the two antagonist forces. The 
Earth's attraction, and the resistance of atmospheric cur- 
rents ever varying in direction and intensity, give as their 
resultants, lines which incline to the horizon in countless 
different degrees and undergo perpetual variations. More 
clearly still is the law exemplified by these same rain-drops 
when they reach the ground. In the course they take while 
trickling over its surface, in every rill, in every larger stream, 
and in every river, we see them descending as straight as the 
antagonism of surrounding objects permits. From moment 
to moment, the motion of water towards the Earth's centre 
is opposed by the solid matter around and under it; and 
from moment to moment its route is the resultant 



240 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

of the lines of greatest traction and least resistance. So far 
from a cascade furnishing, as it seems to do, an exception, 
it furnishes but another illustration. For though all solid 
obstacles to a vertical fall of the water are removed, yet the 
water's horizontal momentum is an obstacle; and the par- 
abola in which the stream leaps from the projecting ledge, 
is generated by the combined gravitation and momen- 
tum. It may be well just to draw attention to the 
degree of complexity here produced in the line of move- 
ment by the variety of forces at work. In atmospheric cur- 
rents, and still more clearly in water-courses (to which 
might be added ocean-streams), the route followed is too 
complex to be defined, save as a curve of three dimensions 
with an ever varying equation. 

The Earth's solid crust undergoes changes that supply 
another group of illustrations. The denudation of lands 
and the depositing of the removed sediment in new strata at 
the bottom of seas and lakes, is a process throughout which 
motion is obviously determined in the same way as is that 
of the water affecting the transport. Again, though we have 
no direct inductive proof that the forces classed as igneous, 
expend themselves along lines of least resistance; yet what 
little we know of them is in harmony with the belief that 
they do so. Earthquakes continually revisit the same locali- 
ties, and special tracts undergo for long periods together 
successive elevations or subsidences, — facts which imply 
that already-fractured portions of the Earth's crust are 
those most prone to yield under the pressure caused by fur- 
ther contractions. The distribution of volcanoes along cer- 
tain lines, as well as the frequent recurrence of eruptions 
from the same vents, are facts of like meaning. 

§ 78. That organic growth takes place in the direction 
of least resistance, is a proposition that has been set forth 
and illustrated by Mr. James Hinton, in the Medico- Chirur- 
gical Review for October, 1858. After detailing a few of 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 241 

the early observations which led him to this generalization, 
he formulates it thus : — 

" Organic form is the result of motion." 
" Motion takes the direction of least resistance." 
" Therefore organic form is the result of motion in the 
direction of least resistance." 

After an elucidation and defence of this position, Mr. 
Hinton proceeds to interpret, in conformity with it, sun- 
dry phenomena of development. Speaking of plants he 
says : — 

" The formation of the root furnishes a beautiful illus- 
tration of the law of least resistance, for it grows by insinuat- 
ing itself, cell by cell, through the interstices of the soil; it 
is by such minute additions that it increases, winding and 
twisting whithersoever the obstacles it meets in its path 
determine, and growing there most, where the nutritive 
materials are added to it most abundantly. As we look on 
the roots of a mighty tree, it appears to us as if they had 
forced themselves with giant violence into the solid earth. 
But it is not so; they were led on gently, cell added to cell, 
softly as the dews descended, and the loosened earth made 
way. Once formed, indeed, they expand with an enormous 
power, but the spongy condition of the growing radicles 
utterly forbids the supposition that they are forced into the 
earth. Is it not probable, indeed, that the enlargement of 
the roots already formed may crack the surrounding soil, 
and help to make the interstices into which the new rootlets 
grow?-" * * * 

" Throughout almost the whole of organic nature the 
spiral form is more or less distinctly marked. Xow, motion 
under resistance takes a spiral direction, as may be seen by 
the motion of a body rising or falling through water. A 
bubble rising rapidly in water describes a spiral closely re- 
sembling a corkscrew, and a body of moderate specific grav- 
ity dropped into water may be seen to fall in a curved direc- 
tion, the spiral tendency of which may be distinctly ob- 



242 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

served. * * * In this prevailing spiral form of organic 
bodies, therefore, it appears to me, that there is presented a 
strong prima facie case for the view I have maintained. 
# * # ^g S pi ra j f orm f the branches of many trees is 
very apparent, and the universally spiral arrangement of the 
leaves around the stem of plants needs only to be referred 
to. * .-* * The heart commences as a spiral turn, and in 
its perfect form a manifest spiral may be traced through 
the left ventricle, right ventricle, right auricle, left auricle 
and appendix. And what is the spiral turn in which the 
heart commences but a necessary result of the lengthening, 
under a limit, of the cellular mass of which it then con- 
sists? " * * * 

" Every one must have noticed the peculiar curling up of 
the young leaves of the common fern. The appearance is as 
if the leaf were rolled up, but in truth this form is merely 
a phenomenon of growth. The curvature results from 
the increase of the leaf, it is only another form of the 
wrinkling up, or turning at right angles by extension under 
limit." 

" The rolling up or imbrication of the petals in many 
flower-buds is a similar thing; at an early period the small 
petals may be seen lying side by side, afterwards growing 
within the capsule, they become folded round one an- 
other." * * * 

" If a flower-bud be opened at a sufficiently early period, 
the stamens will be found as if moulded in the cavity be- 
tween the pistil and the corolla, which cavity the anthers ex- 
actly fill; the stalks lengthen at an after period. I have 
noticed also in a few instances, that in those flowers in which 
the petals are imbricated, or twisted together, the pistil is 
tapering as growing up between the petals ; in some flowers 
which have the petals so arranged in the bud as to form a 
dome (as the hawthorn; e. g.), the pistil is flattened at the 
apex, and in the bud occupies a space precisely limited by 
the stamens below, and the enclosing petals above and at 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 243 

the sides. I have not, however, satisfied myself that this 
holds good in all cases." 

Without endorsing all Mr. Hinton's illustrations, to 
some of which exception might be taken, his conclusion 
may be accepted as a large instalment of the truth. It is, 
however, to be remarked, that in the case of organic growth, 
as in all other cases, the line of movement is in strictness 
the resultant of tractive and resistant forces; and that the 
tractive forces here form so considerable an element that 
the formula is scarcely complete without them. The shapes 
of plants are manifestly modified by gravitation : the direc- 
tion of each branch is not what it would have been were the 
tractive force of the Earth absent; and every flower and 
leaf is somewhat altered in the course of development by the 
weight of its parts. Though in animals such effects are less 
conspicuous, yet the instances in which flexible organs have 
their directions in great measure determined by gravity, 
justify the assertion that throughout the whole organism 
the forms of parts must be affected by this force. 

The organic movements which constitute growth, are 
not, however, the only organic movements to be interpreted. 
There are also those which constitute function. And 
throughout these the same general principles are discern- 
ible. That the vessels along which blood, lymph, bile, and 
all the secretions, find their ways, are channels of least re- 
sistance, is a fact almost too conspicuous to be named as an 
illustration. Less conspicuous, however, is the truth, that 
the currents setting along these vessels are affected by the 
tractive force of the Earth: witness varicose veins; wit- 
ness the relief to an inflamed part obtained by raising it; 
witness the congestion of head and face produced by stoop- 
ing. And in the fact that dropsy in the legs gets greater by 
day and decreases at night, while, conversely, that (edema- 
tous fullness under the eyes common in debility, grows 
worse during the hours of reclining and decreases after get- 
ting up, shows ns how the transudation of fluid through 



244 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

the walls of the capillaries, varies according as change of 
position changes the effect of gravity in different parts of the 
body. 

It may be well in passing just to note the bearing of the 
principle on the development of species. From a dynamic 
point of view, " natural selection " implies structural 
changes along lines of least resistance. The multiplication 
of any kind of plant or animal in localities that are favour- 
able to it, is a growth where the antagonistic forces are less 
than elsewhere. And the preservation of varieties that suc- 
ceed better than their allies in coping with surrounding con- 
ditions, is the continuance of vital movement in those direc- 
tions where the obstacles to it are most eluded. 

§ 79. Throughout the phenomena of mind the law 
enunciated is not so readily established. In a large part of 
them, as those of thought and emotion, there is no percepti- 
ble movement. Even in sensation and volition, which show 
us in one part of the body an effect produced by a force ap- 
plied to another part, the intermediate movement is infer- 
ential rather than visible. Such indeed are the difficulties 
that it is not possible here to do more than briefly indicate 
the proofs which might be given did space permit. 

Supposing the various forces throughout an organism to 
be previously in equilibrium, then any part which becomes 
the seat of a further force, added or liberated, must be one 
from which the force, being resisted by smaller forces 
around, will initiate motion towards some other part of the 
organism. If elsewhere in the organism there is a point at 
which force is being expended, and which so is becoming 
minus a force which it before had, instead of plus a force 
which it before had not, and thus is made a point at which 
the re-action against surrounding forces is diminished ; then, 
manifestly, a motion taking place between the first and the 
last of these points is a motion along the line of least resist- 
ance. Now a sensation implies a force added to, or evolved 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 245 

in, that part of the organism which is its seat; while a 
mechanical movement implies an expenditure or loss of 
force in that part of the organism which is its seat. Hence 
if, as we find to be the fact, motion is habitually propagated 
from those parts of an organism to which the external world 
adds forces in the shape of nervous impressions, to those 
parts of an organism which react on the external world 
through muscular contractions, it is simply a fulfilment of 
the law above enunciated. From this general con- 

clusion we may pass to a more special one. When there is 
anything in the circumstances of an animal's life, involv- 
ing that a sensation in one particular place is habitually fol- 
lowed by a contraction in another particular place — when 
there is thus a frequently-repeated motion through the or- 
ganism between these places ; what must be the result as re- 
spects the line along which the motions take place ? Restora- 
tion of equilibrium between the points at which the forces 
have been increased and decreased, must take place through 
some channel. If this channel is affected by the discharge — 
if the obstructive action of the tissues traversed, involves any 
reaction upon them, deducting from their obstructive 
power; then a subsequent motion between these two points 
will meet with less resistance along this channel than the 
previous motion met with; and will consequently take this 
channel still more decidedly. If so, every repetition will 
still further diminish the resistance offered by this route; 
and hence will gradually be formed between the two a per- 
manent line of communication, differing greatly from the 
surrounding tissue in respect of the ease with which force 
traverses it. We see, therefore, that if between a particular 
impression and a particular motion associated with it, there 
is established a connexion producing what is called reflex 
action, the law that motion follows the line of least resist- 
ance, and that, if the conditions remain constant, resistance 
in any direction is diminished by motion occurring in that 
direction, supplies an explanation. Without fur- 



246 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

ther details it will be manifest that a like interpretation 
may be given to the succession of all other nervous changes. 
If in the surrounding world there are objects, attributes, or 
actions, that usually occur together, the effects severally 
produced by them in the organism will become so connected 
by those repetitions which we call experience, that they also 
will occur together. In proportion to the frequency with 
which any external connexion of phenomena is experienced, 
will be the strength of the answering internal connexion of 
nervous states. Thus there will arise all degrees of cohesion 
among nervous states, as there are all degrees of common- 
ness among the surrounding co-existences and sequences 
that generate them: whence must result a general corre- 
spondence between associated ideas' and associated actions in 
the environment.* 

The relation between emotions and actions may be simi- 
larly construed. As a first illustration let us observe what 
happens with emotions that are undirected by volitions. 
These, like feelings in general, expend themselves in gen- 
erating organic changes, and chiefly in muscular contrac- 
tions. As was pointed out in the last chapter, there result 
movements of the involuntary and voluntary muscles, that 
are great in proportion as the emotions are strong. It re- 
mains here to be pointed out, however, that the order in 
which these muscles are affected is explicable only on the 
principle above set forth. Thus, a pleasurable or painful 
state of mind of but slight intensity, does little more than 
increase the pulsations of the heart. Why? For the rea- 
son that the relation between nervous excitement and vas- 
cular contraction, being common to every genus and species 
of feeling, is the one of most frequent repetition ; that hence 
the nervous connexion is, in the way above shown, the one 

* This paragraph is a re-statement, somewhat amplified, of an idea set 
forth in the Medico- Chirurgical Revic%v for January, 1859 (pp. 189 and 190); 
and contains the germ of the intended fifth part of the Principles of Psy- 
chology, which was withheld for the reasons given in the preface to that work. 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 247 

which offers the least resistance to a discharge ; and is there- 
fore ^he one along which a feeble force produces motion. 
A sentiment or passion that is somewhat stronger, affects 
not only the heart but the muscles of the face, and espe- 
cially those around the mouth. Here the like explanation 
applies; since these muscles, being both comparatively 
small, and, for purposes of speech, perpetually used, offer 
less resistance than other voluntary muscles to the nervo- 
motor force. By a further increase of emotion the respira- 
tory and vocal muscles become perceptibly excited. Final- 
ly, under strong passion, the muscles in general of the 
trunk and limbs are violently contracted. Without saying 
that the facts can be thus interpreted in all their details (a 
task requiring data impossible to obtain) it may be safely 
said that the order of excitation is from muscles that are 
small and frequently acted on, to those which are larger and 
less frequently acted on. The single instance of laughter, 
which is an undirected discharge of feeling that affects first 
the muscles round the mouth, then those of the vocal and 
respiratory apparatus, then those of the limbs, and then 
those of the spine:"" suffices to show that when no special 
route is opened for it, a force evolved in the nervous centres 
produces motion along channels which offer the least resist- 
ance, and if it is too great to escape by these, produces mo- 
tion along channels offering successively greater resistance. 
Probably it will be thought impossible to extend this 
reasoning so as to include volitions. Yet we are not without 
evidence that the transition from special desires to special 
muscular acts, conforms to the same principle. It may be 
shown that the mental antecedents of a voluntary move- 
ment, are antecedents which temporarily make the line 
along which this movement takes place, the line of least re- 
sistance. For a volition, suggested as it necessarily is by 
some previous thought connected with it by associations 

* For details sec a paper on " The Physiology of Laughter," published in 
Macmillari's Magazine for March 18G0. 



248 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION". 

that determine the transition, is itself a representation of the 
movements that are willed, and of their sequences. l$ut to 
represent in consciousness certain of onr own movements, 
is partially to arouse the sensations accompanying such 
movements, inclusive of those of muscular tension — is par- 
tially to excite the appropriate motor-nerves and all the 
other nerves implicated. That is to say, the volition is itself 
an incipient discharge along a line which previous experi- 
ences have rendered a line of least resistance. And the 
passing of volition into action is simply a completion of the 
discharge. 

One corollary from this must be noted before proceed- 
ing ; namely, that the particular set of muscular movements 
by which any object of desire is reached, are movements im- 
plying the smallest total of forces to be overcome. As each 
feeling generates motion along the line of least resistance, it 
is tolerably clear that a group of feelings, constituting a 
more or less complex desire, will generate motion along a 
series of lines of least resistance. That is to say, the desired 
end will be achieved with the smallest expenditure of effort. 
Should it be objected that through want of knowledge 
or want of skill, a man often pursues the more laborious of 
two courses, and so overcomes a larger total of opposing 
forces than was necessary; the reply is, that relatively to his 
mental state the course he takes is that which presents the 
fewest difficulties. Though there is another which in the 
abstract is easier, yet his ignorance of it, or inability to 
adopt it, is, physically considered, the existence of an insu- 
perable obstacle to the discharge of his energies in that direc- 
tion. Experience obtained by himself, or communicated 
by others, has not established in him such channels of nerv- 
ous communication as are required to make this better 
course the course of least resistance to him. 

§ 80. As in individual animals, inclusive of man, motion 
follows lines of least resistance, it is to be inferred that 



THE DIRECTION OP MOTION". 249 

among aggregations of men, the like will hold good. The 
changes in a society, being due to the joint actions of its 
members, the courses of such changes will be determined 
as are those of all other changes wrought by composition 
of forces. 

Thus when we contemplate a society as an organism, and 
observe the direction of its growth, we find this direction to 
be that in which the average of opposing forces is the least. 
Its units have energies to be expended in self-maintenance 
and reproduction. These energies are met by various en- 
vironing energies that are antagonistic to them — those of 
geological origin, those of climate, of wild animals, of other 
human races with whom they are at enmity or in competi- 
tion. And the tracts the society spreads over, are those in 
which there is the smallest total antagonism. Or, reducing 
the matter to its ultimate terms, we may say that these social 
units have jointly and severally to preserve themselves and 
their offspring from those inorganic and organic forces 
which are ever tending to destroy them (either indirectly 
by oxidation and by undue abstraction of heat, or directly 
by bodily mutilation) ; that these forces are either counter- 
acted by others which are available in the shape of food, 
clothing, habitations, and appliances of defence, or are, as 
far as may be, eluded ; and that population spreads in which- 
ever directions there is the readiest escape from these forces, 
or the least exertion in obtaining the materials for resisting 
them, or both. For these reasons it happens that fer- 

tile valleys where water and vegetal produce abound, are 
early peopled. Sea-shores, too, supplying a large amount 
of easily-gathered food, are lines along which mankind 
have commonly spread. The general fact that, so far as 
we can judge from the traces left by them, large societies 
first appeared in those tropical regions where the fruits of 
the earth are obtainable with comparatively little exertion, 
and where the cost of maintaining bodily heat is but slight, 
is a fact of like meaning. And to these instances may be 
18 



250 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

added the allied one daily furnished by emigration; which 
we see going on towards countries presenting the fewest ob- 
stacles to the self-preservation of individuals, and therefore 
to national growth. Similarly with that resistance 

to the movements of a society which neighbouring societies 
offer. Each of the tribes or nations inhabiting any region, 
increases in numbers until it outgrows its means of subsist- 
ence. In each there is thus a force ever pressing outwards 
on to adjacent areas — a force antagonized by like forces in 
the tribes or nations occupying those areas. And the ever- 
recurring wars that result — the conquests of weaker tribes 
or nations, and the over-running of their territories by the 
victors, are instances of social movements taking place in 
the directions of least resistance. Nor do the conquered 
peoples, when they escape extermination or enslavement, 
fail to show us movements that are similarly determined. 
For migrating as they do to less fertile regions — taking ref- 
uge in deserts or among mountains — moving in a direction 
where the resistance to social growth is comparatively great ; 
they still do this only under an excess of pressure in all other 
directions: the physical obstacles to self-preservation they 
encounter, being really less than the obstacles offered by 
the enemies from whom they fly. 

Internal social movements may also be thus interpreted. 
Localities naturally fitted for producing particular com- 
modities — that is, localities in which such commodities are 
got at the least cost of force — that is, localities in which the 
desires for these commodities meet with the least resistance ; 
become localities especially devoted to the obtainment of 
these commodities. Where soil and climate render wheat a 
profitable crop, or a crop from which the greatest amount 
of life-sustaining power is gained by a given quantity of 
effort, the growth of wheat becomes the dominant industry. 
"Where wheat cannot be economically produced, oats, or 
rye, or maize, or rice, or potatoes, is the agricultural staple. 
Along sea-shores men support themselves with least effort 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 251 

by catching fish ; and hence choose fishing as an occupation. 
And in places that are rich in coal or metallic ores, the popu- 
lation, finding that labour devoted to the raising of these 
materials brings a larger return of food and clothing than 
when otherwise directed, becomes a population of mi- 
ners. This last instance introduces us to the phe- 
nomena of exchange; which equally illustrate the general 
law. For the practice of barter begins as soon as it facili- 
tates the fulfilment of men's desires, by diminishing the ex- 
ertion needed to reach the objects of those desires. When 
instead of growing his own corn, weaving his own cloth, 
sewing his own shoes, each man began to confine himself to 
farming, or weaving, or shoemaking; it was because each 
found it more laborious to make everything he wanted, 
than to make a great quantity of one thing and barter the 
surplus for the rest: by exchange, each procured the neces- 
saries of life without encountering so much resistance. 
Moreover, in deciding what commodity to produce, each 
citizen was, as he is at the present day, guided in the same 
manner. For besides those local conditions which deter- 
mine whole sections of a society towards the industries 
easiest for them, there are also individual conditions and in- 
dividual aptitudes which to each citizen render certain 
occupations preferable; and in choosing those forms of ac- 
tivity which their special circumstances and faculties dic- 
tate, these social units are severally moving towards the 
objects of their desires in the directions which present to 
them the fewest obstacles. The process of transfer 
which commerce pre-supposes, supplies another series of ex- 
amples. So long as the forces to be overcome in procuring 
any necessary of life in the district where it is consumed, 
are less than the forces to be overcome in procuring it 
from an adjacent district, exchange does not take place. 
But when the adjacent district produces it with an economy 
that is not out-balanced by cost of transit — when the dis- 
tance is so small and the route so easy that the labour of 



252 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

conveyance pins the labour of production is less than the 
labour of production in the consuming district, transfer 
commences. Movement in the direction of least resistance 
is also seen in the establishment of the channels along which 
intercourse takes place. At the outset, when goods are car- 
ried on the backs of men and horses, the paths chosen are 
those which combine shortness with levelness and freedom 
from obstacles — those which are achieved with the smallest 
exertion. And in the subsequent formation of each high- 
way, the course taken is that which deviates horizontally 
from a straight line so far only as is needful to avoid ver- 
tical deviations entailing greater labour in draught. The 
smallest total of obstructive forces determines the route, 
even in seemingly exceptional cases; as where a detour is 
made to avoid the opposition of a land-owner. All subse- 
quent improvements, ending in macadamized roads, canals, 
and railways, which reduce the antagonism of friction and 
gravity to a minimum, exemplify the same truth. After 
there comes to be a choice of roads between one point and 
another, we still see that the road chosen is that along which 
the cost of transit is the least: cost being the measure of 
resistance. Even where, time being a consideration, the 
more expensive route is followed, it is so because the loss of 
time involves loss of force. When, division of 

labour having been carried to a considerable extent and 
means of communication made easy, there arises a marked 
localization of industries, the relative growths of the popu- 
lations devoted to them may be interpreted on the same 
principle. The influx of people to each industrial centre, as 
well as the rate of multiplication of those already inhabiting 
it, is determined by the payment for labour; that is — by the 
quantity of commodities which a given amount of effort will 
obtain. To say that artisans flock to places where, in conse- 
quence of facilities for production, an extra proportion of 
produce can be given in the shape of wages; is to say that 
they flock to places where there are the smallest obstacles to 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 253 

the support of themselves and families. Hence, the rapid 
increase of number which occurs in such places, is really a 
social growth at points where the opposing forces are the 
least. 

Nor is the law less clearly to be traced in those functional 
changes daily going on. The flow of capital into businesses 
yielding the largest returns; the buying in the cheapest 
market and selling in the dearest; the introduction of more 
economical modes of manufacture; the development of bet- 
ter agencies for distribution ; and all those variations in the 
currents of trade that are noted in our newspapers and tele- 
grams from hour to hour ; exhibit movement taking place in 
directions where it is met by the smallest total of opposing 
forces. For if we analyze each of these changes — if instead 
of interest on capital we read surplus of products which re- 
mains after maintenance of labourers; if we so interpret 
large interest or large surplus to imply labour expended with 
the greatest results; and if labour expended with the great- 
est results means muscular action so directed as to evade ob- 
stacles as far as possible; we see that all these commercial 
phenomena are complicated motions set up along lines of 
least resistance. 

Objections of two opposite kinds will perhaps be made to 
these sociological applications of the law. By some it may 
be said that the term force as here used, is used metaphori- 
cally — that to speak of men as im/pelled in certain directions 
by certain desires, is a figure of speech and not the statement 
of a physical fact. The reply is, that the foregoing illustra- 
tions are to be interpreted literally, and that the processes 
described are physical ones. The pressure of hunger is an 
actual force — a sensation implying some state of nervous 
tension; and the muscular action which the sensation 
prompts is really a discharge of it in the shape of bodily mo- 
tion — a discharge which, on analyzing the mental acts in- 
volved, will be found to follow lines of least resistance. 
Hence the motions of a society whose members arc impelled 



254 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

by this or any other desire, are actually, and not metaphori- 
cally, to be understood in the manner shown. An 
opposite objection may possibly be, that the several illustra- 
tions given are elaborated truisms; and that the law of di- 
rection of motion being once recognized, the fact that social 
movements, in common with all others, must conform to it, 
follows inevitably. To this it may be rejoined, that a mere 
abstract assertion that social movements must do this, would 
carry no conviction to the majority; and that it is needful 
to show how they do it. For social phenomena to be unified 
with phenomena of simpler kinds, it is requisite that such 
generalizations as those of political economy shall be reduced 
to equivalent propositions expressed in terms of force and 
motion. 

Social movements of these various orders severally con- 
form to the two derivative principles named at the outset. 
In the first place we may observe how, once set up in given 
directions, such movements, like all others, tend to continue 
in these directions. A commercial mania or panic, a current 
of commodities, a social custom, a political agitation, or a 
popular delusion, maintains its course for a long time after 
its original source has ceased; and requires antagonistic 
forces to arrest it. In the second place it is to be noted that 
in proportion to the complexity of social forces is the tor- 
tuousness of social movements. The involved series of mus- 
cular contractions gone through by the artizan, that he may 
get the wherewithal to buy a loaf lying at the baker's next 
door, show us how extreme becomes the indirectness of mo- 
tion when the agencies at work become very numerous — a 
truth still better illustrated by the more public social ac- 
tions; as those which end in bringing a successful man of 
business, towards the close of his life, into parliament. 

§ 81. And now of the general truth set forth in this 
chapter, as of that dealt with in the last, let us ask — what is 
our ultimate evidence ? Must we accept it simply as an em- 



THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 255 

pirical generalization? or may it be established as a corollary 
from a still deeper truth? The reader will anticipate the 
answer. We shall find it deducible from that datum of 
consciousness which underlies all science. 

Suppose several tractive forces, variously directed, to be 
acting on a given body. By what is known among mathe- 
maticians as the composition of forces, there may be found 
for any two of these, a single force of such amount and 
direction as to produce on the body an exactly equal effect. 
If in the direction of each of them there be drawn a straight 
line, and if the lengths of these two straight lines be made 
proportionate to the amounts of the forces; and if from the 
end of each line there be drawn a line parallel to the other, 
so as to complete a parallelogram; then the diagonal of this 
parallelogram represents the amount and direction of a force 
that is equivalent to the two. Such a resultant force, as it is 
called, may be found for any pair of forces throughout the 
group. Similarly, for any pair of such resultants a single 
resultant may be found. And by repeating this course, all 
of them may be reduced to two. If these two are equal and 
opposite — that is, if there is no line of greatest traction, 
motion does not take place. If they are opposite but not 
equal, motion takes place in the direction of the greater. 
And if they are neither equal nor opposite, motion takes 
place in the direction of their resultant. For in either of 
these cases there is an unantagonized force in one direction. 
And this residuary force that is not neutralized by an oppos- 
ing one, must move the body in the direction in which it is 
acting. To assert the contrary is to assert that a force can 
be expended without effect — without generating an equiva- 
lent force; and by so implying that force can cease to exist, 
this involves a denial of the persistence of force. It 

needs scarcely be added that if in place of tractions we take 
resistances, the argument equally holds; and that it holds 
also where both tractions and resistances are concerned. 
Thus the law that motion follows the line of greatest trac- 



256 THE DIRECTION OF MOTION 

tion, or the line of least resistance, or the resultant of the 
two, is a necessary deduction from that primordial truth 
which transcends proof. 

Reduce the proposition to its simplest form, and it be- 
comes still more obviously consequent on the persistence of 
force. Suppose two weights suspended over a pulley or 
from the ends of an equal-armed lever ; or better still — sup- 
pose two men pulling against each other. In such cases we 
say that the heavier weight will descend, and that the 
stronger man will draw the weaker towards him. But now, 
if we are asked how we know which is the heavier weight or 
the stronger man; we can only reply that it is the one pro- 
ducing motion in the direction of its pull. Our only evi- 
dence of excess of force is the movement it produces. But if 
of two opposing tractions we can know one as greater than 
the other' only by the motion it generates in its own direc- 
tion, then the assertion that motion occurs in the direction 
of greatest traction is a truism. When, going a step further 
back, we seek a warrant for the assumption that of the two 
conflicting forces, that is the greater which produces mo- 
tion in its own direction, we find no other than the con- 
sciousness that such part of the greater force as is unneutral- 
ized by the lesser, must produce its effect — the consciousness 
that this residuary force cannot disappear, but must mani- 
fest itself in some equivalent change — the consciousness 
that force is persistent. Here too, as before, it may 

be remarked that no amount of varied illustrations, like 
those of which this chapter mainly consists, can give greater 
certainty to the conclusion thus immediately drawn from 
the ultimate datum of consciousness. For in all cases, as in 
the simpler ones just given, we can identify the greatest 
force only by the resulting motion. It is impossible for us 
ever to get evidence of the occurrence of motion in any 
other direction than that of the greatest force; since our 
measure of relative greatness among forces is their relative 
power of generating motion. And clearly, while the com- 



THE DIRECTION OP MOTION. 257 

parative greatness of forces is thus determined, no multipli- 
cation of instances can add certainty to a law of direction of 
movement which follows immediately from the persistence 
of force. 

From this same primordial truth, too, may be deduced 
the principle that motion once set up along any line, be- 
comes itself a cause of subsequent motion along that line. 
The mechanical axiom that, if left to itself, matter moving 
in any direction will continue in that direction with undi- 
minished velocity, is but an indirect assertion of the persist- 
ence of force; since it is an assertion that the force mani- 
fested in the transfer of a body along a certain length of a 
certain line in a certain time, cannot disappear without pro- 
ducing some equal manifestation — a manifestation which, 
in the absence of conflicting forces, must be a further trans- 
fer in the same direction at the same velocity. In 
the case of matter traversing matter the like inference is 
necessitated. Here indeed the actions are much more com- 
plicated. A liquid that follows a certain channel through 
or over a solid, as water along the Earth's surface, loses part 
of its motion in the shape of heat, through friction and col- 
lision with the matters forming its bed. A further amount 
of its motion may be absorbed in overcoming forces which 
it liberates; as when it loosens a mass which falls into, and 
blocks up, its channel. But after these deductions by trans- 
formation into other modes of force, any further deduction 
from the motion of the water is at the expense of a reaction 
on the channel, which by so much diminishes its obstructive 
power: such reaction being shown in the motion acquired 
by the detached portions which are carried away. The 
cutting out of river-courses is a perpetual illustration of this 
truth. Still more involved is the case of motion 
passing through matter by impulse from part to part; as a 
nervous discharge through animal tissue. Some chemical 
change may be wrought along the route traversed, which 
may render it less lit than before for conveying a current. 



258 * THE DIRECTION OF MOTION. 

Or the motion may itself be in part metamorphosed into 
some obstructive form of force ; as in metals, the conducting 
power of which is, for the time, decreased by the heat which 
the passage of electricity itself generates. The real ques- 
tion is, however, what structural modification, if any, is pro- 
duced throughout the matter traversed, apart from inci- 
dental disturbing forces — apart from everything but the 
necessary resistance of the matter: that, namely, which re- 
sults from the inertia of its units. If we confine our 
attention to that part of the motion which, escaping trans- 
formation, continues its course, then it is a corollary from 
the persistence of force that as much of this remaining mo- 
tion as is taken up in changing the positions of the units, 
must leave these by so much less able to obstruct subsequent 
motion in the same direction. 

Thus in all the changes heretofore and at present dis- 
played by the Solar System; in all those that have gone on 
and are still going on in the Earth's crust ; in all processes of 
organic development and function ; in all mental actions and 
the effects they work on the body; and in all modifications 
of structure and activity in societies ; the implied movements 
are of necessity determined in the manner above set forth. 
Wherever we see motion, its direction must be that of the 
greatest force. Wherever we see the greatest force to be 
acting in a given direction, in that direction motion must 
ensue. These are not truths holding only of one class, or of 
some classes, of phenomena; but they are among those 
universal truths by which our knowledge of phenomena in 
general is unified. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

§ 82. When the pennant of a vessel lying becalmed first 
shows the coming breeze, it does so by gentle undulations 
that travel from its fixed to its free end. Presently the sails 
begin to flap ; and their, blows against the mast increase in 
rapidity as the breeze rises. Even when, being fully bellied 
out, they are in great part steadied by the strain of the yards 
and cordage, their free edges tremble with each stronger 
gust. And should there come a gale, the jar that is felt on 
laying hold of the shrouds shows that the rigging vibrates; 
while the rush and whistle of the wind prove that in it, also, 
rapid undulations are generated. Ashore the conflict be- 
tween the current of air and the things it meets results in a 
like rhythmical action. The leaves all shiver in the blast; 
each branch oscillates ; and every exposed tree sways to and 
fro. The blades of grass and dried bents in the meadows, 
and still better the stalks in the neighbouring corn-fields, 
exhibit the same rising and falling movement. Nor do the 
more stable objects fail to do the like, though in a less mani- 
fest fashion; as witness the shudder that may be felt 
throughout a house during the paroxysms of a violent 
storm. Streams of water produce in opposing ob- 

jects the same general effects as do streams of air. Sub- 
merger] weeds growing in the middle of a brook, undulate 
from end to end. Branches brought down by the last flood, 
and left entangled at the bottom where the current is rapid, 

259 



260 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

are thrown into a state of up and down movement that is 
slow or quick in proportion as they are large or small; and 
where, as in great rivers like the Mississippi, whole trees are 
thus held, the name " sawyers/ 7 by which they are locally 
known, sufficiently describes the rhythm produced in them. 
Note again the effect of the antagonism between the current 
and its channel. In shallow places, where the action of the 
bottom on the water flowing over it is visible, we see a ripple 
produced — a series of undulations. And if we study the 
action and re-action going on between the moving fluid and 
its banks, we still find the principle illustrated, though in 
a different way. For in every rivulet, as in the mapped-out 
course of every great river, the bends of the stream from 
side to side throughout its tortuous course constitute a lat- 
eral undulation — an undulation so inevitable that even an 
artificially straightened channel is eventually changed into 
a serpentine one. Analogous phenomena may be observed 
where the water is stationary and the solid matter moving. 
A stick drawn laterally through the water with much force, 
proves by the throb which it communicates to the hand that 
it is in a state of vibration. Even where the moving body is 
massive, it only requires that great force should be applied 
to get a sensible effect of like kind : instance the screw of a 
screw-steamer, which instead of a smooth rotation falls into 
a rapid rhythm that sends a tremor through the whole ves- 
sel. The sound which results when a bow is drawn 
over a violin-string, shows us vibrations produced by the 
movement of a solid over a solid. In lathes and planing 
machines, the attempt to take off a thick shaving causes a 
violent jar of the whole apparatus, and the production of a 
series of waves on the iron or wood that is cut. Every boy 
in scraping his slate-pencil finds it scarcely possible to help 
making a ridged surface. If you roll a ball along the 
ground or over the ice, there is always more or less up and 
down movement — a movement that is visible while the 
velocity is considerable, but becomes too small and rapid to 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. ' 261 

be seen by the unaided eye as the velocity diminishes. 
However smooth the rails, and however perfectly built the 
carriages, a railway-train inevitably gets into oscillations, 
both lateral and vertical. Even where moving matter is 
suddenly arrested by collision, the law is still illustrated; for 
both the body striking and the body struck are made to trem- 
ble; and trembling is rhythmical movement. Little as we 
habitually observe it, it is yet certain that the impulses our 
actions impress from moment to moment on surrounding 
objects, are propagated through them in vibrations. It 
needs but to look through a telescope of high power, to be 
convinced that each pulsation of the heart gives a jar to 
the whole room. If we pass to motions of another 

order — those namely which take place in the etherial me- 
dium — we still find the same thing. Every fresh discovery 
confirms the hypothesis that light consists of undulations. 
The rays of heat, too, are now found to have a like funda- 
mental nature; their undulations differing from those of 
light only in their comparative lengths. Xor do the move- 
ments of electricity fail to furnish us with an illustration; 
though one of a different order. The northern aurora may 
often be observed to pulsate with waves of greater bright- 
ness; and the electric discharge through a vacuum shows us 
by its stratified appearance that the current is not uni- 
form, but comes in gushes of greater and lesser inten- 
sity. Should it be said that at any rate there are 
some motions, as those of projectiles, which are not rhyth- 
mical, the reply is, that the exception is apparent only; and 
that these motions would be rhythmical if they were not in- 
terrupted. It is common to assert that the trajectory of a 
cannon ball is a parabola; and it is true that (omitting 
atmospheric resistance) the curve described differs so slight- 
ly from a parabola that it may practically be regarded as 
one. But, strictly speaking, it is a portion of an extremely 
eccentric ellipse, having the Earth's centre of gravity for 
its remoter focus; and bui for its arrest by the substance of 



262 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

the Earth, the cannon ball would travel round that focus 
and return to the point whence it started; again to repeat 
this slow rhythm. Indeed, while seeming at first sight to 
do the reverse, the discharge of a cannon furnishes one of 
the best illustrations of the principle enunciated. The ex- 
plosion produces violent undulations in the surrounding air. 
The whizz of the shot, as it flies towards its mark, is due to 
another series of atmospheric undulations. And the move- 
ment to and from the Earth's centre, which the cannon 
ball is beginning to perform, being checked by solid matter, 
is transformed into a rhythm of another order; namely, 
the vibration which the blow sends through neighbouring 
bodies.* 

Rhythm is very generally not simple but compound. 
There are usually at work various forces, causing undula- 
tions differing in rapidity ; and hence it continually happens 
that besides the primary rhythms there are secondary 
rhythms, produced by the periodic coincidence and antago- 
nism of the primary ones. Double, triple, and even quad- 
ruple rhythms, are thus generated. One of the simplest in- 
stances is afforded by what in acoustics are known as 
" beats : " recurring intervals of sound and silence which 
are perceived when two notes of nearly the same pitch are 
struck together; and which are due to the alternate corre- 
spondence and antagonism of the atmospheric waves. In 
like manner the various phenomena due to what is called 
interference of light, severally result from the periodic 
agreement and disagreement of etherial undulations — un- 
dulations which, by alternately intensifying and neutraliz- 
ing each other, produce intervals of increased and dimin- 
ished light. On the sea-shore may be noted sundry instances 
of compound rhythm. We have that of the tides, in which 
the daily rise and fall undergoes a fortnightly increase and 

* After having for some years supposed myself alone in the belief that all 
motion is rhythmical I discovered that my friend Professor Tyndall also held 
this doctrine. 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 263 

decrease, due to the alternate coincidence and antagonism 
of the solar and lunar attractions. We have again that 
which is perpetually furnished by the surface of the sea: 
every large wave bearing smaller ones on its sides, and these 
still smaller ones; with the result that each flake of foam, 
along with the portion of water bearing it, undergoes minor 
ascents and descents of several orders while it is being raised 
and lowered by the greater billows. A quite different and 
very interesting example of compound rhythm, occurs in 
the little rills which, at low tide, run over the sand out of the 
shingle banks above. AVhere the channel of one of these is 
narrow, and the stream runs strongly, the sand at the bot- 
tom is raised into a series of ridges corresponding" to the rip- 
ple of the water. On watching for a short time, it will be 
seen that these ridges are being raised higher and the ripple 
growing stronger; until at length, the action becoming vio- 
lent, the whole series of ridges is suddenly swept away, the 
stream runs smoothly, and the process commences afresh. 
Instances of still more complex rhythms might be added; 
but they will come more appropriately in connexion with 
the several kinds of cosmical changes, hereafter to be dealt 
with. 

From the ensemble of the facts as above set forth, it will 
be seen that rhythm results wherever there is a conflict of 
forces not in equilibrium. If the antagonist forces at any 
point are balanced, there is rest; and in the absence of mo- 
tion there can of course be no rhythm. But if instead of a 
balance there is an excess of force in one direction — if, as 
necessarily follows, motion is set up in that direction; then 
for that motion to continue uniformly in that direction, it 
is requisite that the moving matter should, notwithstanding 
its unceasing change of place, present unchanging relations 
to the sources of force by which its motion is produced and 
opposed. This however is impossible. Every further trans- 
fer through space must alter the ratio between the forces 
concerned — must increase or decrease the predominance of 



264: THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

one force over the other — must prevent uniformity of move- 
ment. And if the movement cannot be uniform, then, in 
the absence of acceleration or retardation continued through 
infinite time and space, (results which cannot be conceived) 
the only alternative is rhythm. 

A secondary conclusion must not be omitted. In the last 
chapter we saw that motion is never absolutely rectilinear; 
and here it remains to be added that, as a consequence, 
rhythm is necessarily incomplete. A truly rectilinear 
rhythm can arise only when the opposing forces are in ex- 
actly the same line ; and the probabilities against this are in- 
finitely great. To generate a perfectly circular rhythm, the 
two forces concerned must be exactly at right angles to each 
other, and must have exactly a certain ratio; and against 
this the probabilities are likewise infinitely great. All other 
proportions and directions of the two forces will produce an 
ellipse of greater or less eccentricity. And when, as indeed 
always happens, above two forces are engaged, the curve de- 
scribed must be more complex; and cannot exactly repeat 
itself. So that in fact throughout nature, this action and re- 
action of forces never brings about a complete return to a 
previous state. Where the movement is much involved, 
and especially where it is that of some aggregate whose units 
are partially independent, anything like a regular curve is 
no longer traceable ; we see nothing more than a general os- 
cillation. And on the completion of any periodic move- 
ment, the degree in which the state arrived at differs from 
the state departed from, is usually marked in proportion as 
the influences at work are numerous. 

§ 83. That spiral arrangement so general among the 
more diffused nebulae — an arrangement which must be as- 
sumed by matter moving towards a centre of gravity 
through a resisting medium — shows us the progressive estab- 
lishment of revolution, and therefore of rhythm, in those 
remote spaces which the nebulas occupy. Double stars, 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 265 

moving round common centres of gravity in periods some of 
which are now ascertained, exhibit settled rhythmical ac- 
tions in distant parts of onr siderial system. And another 
fact which, though of a different order, has a like general 
significance, is furnished by variable stars — stars which 
alternately brighten and fade. 

The periodicities of the planets, satellites, and comets, 
are so familiar that it would be inexcusable to name them, 
were it not needful here to point out that they are so many 
grand illustration;: of this general law of movement. But be- 
sides the revolution of these bodies in their orbits (all more 
or less excentric) and their rotations on their axes, the 
Solar System presents us with various rhythms of a less 
manifest and more complex kind. In each planet and satel- 
lite there is the revolution of the nodes — a slow change in 
the position of the orbit-plane, which after completing itself 
commences afresh. There is the gradual alteration in the 
length of the axis major of the orbit; and also of its excen- 
tricity: both of which are rhythmical alike in the sense 
that they alternate between maxima and minima, and in the 
sense that the progress from one extreme to the other is not 
uniform, but is made with fluctuating velocity. Then, too, 
there is the revolution of the line of apsides, which in course 
of time moves round the heavens — not regularly, but 
through complex oscillations. And further we have varia- 
tions in the directions of the planetary axes — that known 
as nutation, and that larger gyration which, in the 
case of the Earth, causes the precession of the equi- 
noxes. These rhythms, already more or less com- 
pound, are compounded with each other. Such an instance 
as the secular acceleration and retardation of the moon, 
consequent on the varying excentricity of the Earth's 
orbit, is one of the simplest. Another, having more impor- 
tant consequences, results from the changing direction of 
the axes of rotation in planets whose orbits are decidedly 
excentric. Every planet, during a certain long period, pre- 



2QQ THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

sents more of its northern than of its southern hemisphere to 
the sun at the time of its nearest approach to him; and then 
again, during a like period, presents more of its southern 
hemisphere than of its northern — a recurring coincidence 
which, though causing in some planets no sensible altera- 
tions of climate, involves in the case of the Earth an epoch 
of 21,000 years, during which each hemisphere goes through 
a cycle of temperate seasons, and seasons that are extreme 
in their heat and cold. Nor is this all. There is even a 
variation of this variation. For the summers and winters of 
the whole Earth become more or less strongly contrasted, as 
the excentricity of its orbit increases and decreases. Hence 
during increase of the excentricity, the epochs of moderately 
contrasted seasons and epochs of strongly contrasted sea- 
sons, through which alternately each hemisphere passes, 
must grow more and more different in the degrees of their 
contrasts; and contrariwise during decrease of the excen- 
tricity. So that in the quantity of light and heat which any 
portion of the Earth receives from the sun, there goes on a 
quadruple rhythm: that of day and night; that of summer 
and winter; that due to the changing position of the axis 
at perihelion and aphelion, taking 21,000 years to complete; 
and that involved by the variation of the orbit's excen- 
tricity, gone through in millions of years. 

§ 84. Those terrestrial processes whose dependence on 
the solar heat is direct, of course exhibit a rhythm that cor- 
responds to the periodically changing amount of heat which 
each part of the Earth receives. The simplest, though the 
least obtrusive, instance is supplied by the magnetic varia- 
tions. In these there is a diurnal increase and decrease, an 
annual increase and decrease, and a decennial increase and 
decrease ; the latter answering to a period during which the 
solar spots become alternately abundant and scarce : besides 
which known variations there are probably others corre- 
sponding with the astronomical cycles just described. More 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 267 

obvious examples are furnished by the movements of the 
ocean and the atmosphere. Marine currents from the equa- 
tor to the poles above, and from the poles to the equator be- 
neath, show us an unceasing backward and forward motion 
throughout this vast mass of water — a motion varying in 
amount according to the seasons, and compounded with 
smaller like motions of local origin. The similarly-caused 
general currents in the air, have similar annual variations 
similarly modified. Irregular as they are in detail, we still 
see in the monsoons and other tropical atmospheric disturb- 
ances, or even in our own equinoctial gales and spring east 
winds, a periodicity sufficiently decided. Again, 

we have an alternation of times during which evaporation 
predominates with times during which condensation pre- 
dominates: shown in the tropics by strongly marked rainy 
seasons and seasons of drought, and in the temperate zones 
by corresponding changes of which the periodicity, though 
less definite, is still traceable. The diffusion and precipita- 
tion of water, besides the slow alternations answering to dif- 
ferent parts of the year, furnish us with examples of rhythm 
of a more rapid kind. During wet weather, lasting, let us 
say, over some weeks, the tendency to condense, though 
greater than the tendency to evaporate, does not show itself 
in continuous rain ; but the period is made up of rainy days 
and days that are wholly or partially fair. K'or is it in this 
rude alternation only that the law is manifested. During 
any day throughout this wet weather a minor rhythm is 
traceable; and especially so when the tendencies to evapo- 
rate and to condense are nearly balanced. Among moun- 
tains this minor rhythm and its causes may be studied to 
great advantage. Moist winds, which do not precipitate 
their contained water in passing over the comparatively 
warm lowlands, lose so much heat when they reach the cold 
mountain peaks, that condensation rapidly takes place. 
Water, however, in passing from the gaseous to the fluid 
state, gives out a considerable amount of heat; and hence 



208 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

the resulting clouds are warmer than the air that precipi- 
tates them, and much warmer than the high rocky surfaces 
round which they fold themselves. Hence in the course of 
the storm, these high rocky surfaces are raised in tempera- 
ture, partly by radiation from the enwrapping cloud, partly 
by contact of the falling rain-drops. Giving off more heat 
than before, they no longer lower so greatly the temperature 
of the air passing over them; and so cease to precipitate 
its contained water. The clouds break; the sky begins to 
clear; and a gleam of sunshine promises that the day is 
going to be fine. But the small supply of heat which the 
cold mountain's sides have received, is soon lost: especially 
when the dispersion of the clouds permits free radiation into 
space. Very soon, therefore, these elevated surfaces, be- 
coming as cold as at first, (or perhaps even colder in virtue 
of the evaporation set up,) begin again to condense the va- 
pour in the air above; and there comes another storm, fol- 
lowed by the same effects as before. In lowland regions this 
action and reaction is usually less conspicuous, because the 
contrast of temperatures is less marked. Even here, how- 
ever, it may be traced; and that not only on showery days, 
but on days of continuous rain; for in these we do not see 
uniformity : always there are fits of harder and gentler rain 
that are probably caused as above explained. 

Of course these meteorologic rhythms involve something 
corresponding to them in the changes wrought by wind and 
water on the Earth's surface. Variations in the quantities 
of sediment brought down by rivers that rise and fall with 
the seasons, must cause variations in the resulting strata — 
alternations of colour or quality in the successive laminae. 
Beds formed from the detritus of shores worn down and car- 
ried away by the waves, must similarly show periodic differ- 
ences answering to the periodic winds of the locality. In so 
far as frost influences the rate of denudation, its recurrence 
is a factor in the rhythm of sedimentary deposits. And the 
geological changes produced by glaciers and icebergs must 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 269 

similarly have their alternating periods of greater and less 
intensity. 

There is evidence also that modifications in the Earth's 
crust due to igneous action have a certain periodicity. Vol- 
canic eruptions are not continuous but intermittent, and as 
far as the data enable us to judge, have a certain average 
rate of recurrence ; which rate of recurrence is complicated 
by rising into epochs of greater activity and falling into 
epochs of comparative quiescence. So too is it with earth- 
quakes and the elevations or depressions caused by them. 
At the mouth of the Mississippi, the alternation of strata 
gives decisive proof of successive sinkings of the surface, 
that have taken place at tolerably equal intervals. Every- 
where, in the extensive groups of conformable strata that 
imply small subsidences recurring with a certain average 
frequency, we see a rhythm in the action and reaction be- 
tween the Earth's crust and its molten contents — a rhythm 
compounded with those slower ones shown in the termina- 
tion of groups of strata, and the commencement of other 
groups not conformable to them. There is even 

reason for suspecting a geological periodicity that is im- 
mensely slower and far wider in its effects; namely, an al- 
ternation of those vast upheavals and submergencies by 
wmich continents are produced where there were oceans, and 
oceans where there were continents. For supposing, as we 
may fairly do, that the Earth's crust is throughout of toler- 
ably equal thickness, it is manifest that such portions of it as 
become most depressed below the average level, must have 
their inner surfaces most exposed to the currents of molten 
matter circulating within, and will therefore undergo a 
larger amount of what may be called igneous denudation; 
while, conversely, the withdrawal of the inner surfaces from 
these currents where the Earth's crust is most elevated, will 
cause a thickening more or less compensating the aqueous 
denudation going on externally. Hence those depressed 
areas over which the deepest oceans lie, being gradually 



270 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

thinned beneath and not covered by much sedimentary 
deposit above, will become areas of least resistance, and will 
then begin to yield to the upward pressure of the Earth's 
contents; whence will result, throughout such areas, long 
continued elevations, ceasing only when the reverse state 
of things has been brought about. Whether this specula- 
tion be well or ill founded, does not however affect the gen- 
eral conclusion. Apart from it we have sufficient evidence 
that geologic processes are rhythmical. 

§ 85. Perhaps nowhere are the illustrations of rhythm 
so numerous and so manifest as among the phenomena of 
life. Plants do not, indeed, usually show us any decided 
periodicities, save those determined by day and night and by 
the seasons. But in animals we have a great variety of 
movements in which the alternation of opposite extremes 
goes on with all degrees of rapidity. The swallowing of 
food is effected by a wave of constriction passing along 
the oesophagus; its digestion is accompanied by a muscular 
action of the stomach that is also undulatory; and the peri- 
staltic motion of the intestines is of like nature. The blood 
obtained from this food is propelled not in a uniform cur- 
rent but in pulses ; and it is aerated by lungs that alternately 
contract and expand. All locomotion results from oscilla- 
ting movements: even where it is apparently continuous, 
as in many minute forms, the microscope proves the vibra- 
tion of cilia to be the agency by which the creature is moved 
smoothly forwards. 

Primary rhythms of the organic actions are compounded 
with secondary ones of longer duration. These various 
modes of activity have their recurring periods of increase 
and decrease. We see this in the periodic need for food, 
and in the periodic need for repose. Each meal induces a 
more rapid rhythmic action of the digestive organs; the 
pulsation of the heart is accelerated; and the inspirations 
become more frequent. During sleep, on the contrary, these 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 271 

several movements slacken. So that in the course of the 
twenty-four hours, those small undulations of which the 
different kinds of organic action are constituted, undergo 
one long wave of increase and decrease, complicated with 
several minor waves. Experiments have shown 

that there are still slower rises and falls of functional ac- 
tivity. Waste and assimilation are not balanced by every 
meal, but one or other maintains for some time a slight ex- 
cess ; so that a person in ordinary health is found to undergo 
an increase and decrease of weight during recurring inter- 
vals of tolerable equality. Besides these regular periods 
there are still longer and comparatively irregular ones; 
namely, those alternations of greater and less vigour, which 
even healthy people experience. So inevitable are these 
oscillations that even men in training cannot be kept sta- 
tionary at their highest power, but when they have reached 
it begin to retrograde. Further evidence of rhythm 

in the vital movements is furnished by invalids. Sundry 
disorders are named from the intermittent character of 
their symptoms. Even where the periodicity is not very 
marked, it is mostly traceable. Patients rarely if ever get 
uniformly worse ; and convalescents have usually their days 
of partial relapse or of less decided advance. 

Aggregates of living creatures illustrate the general 
truth in other ways. If each species of organism be regarded 
as a whole, it displays two kinds of rhythm. Life as it ex- 
ists in all the members of such species, is an extremely 
complex kind of movement, more or less distinct from the 
kinds of movement which constitute life in other species. 
In each individual of the species, this extremely complex 
kind of movement begins, rises to its climax, declines, and 
ceases in death. And every successive generation thus ex- 
hibits a wave of that peculiar activity characterizing the 
species as a whole. The other form of rhythm is to 

be traced in that variation of number which each tribe of 
animals and plants is ever undergoing. Throughout the 



272 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

unceasing conflict between the tendency of a species to in- 
crease and the antagonistic tendencies, there is never an 
equilibrium : one always predominates. In the case even of 
a cultivated plant or domesticated animal, where artificial 
means are used to maintain the supply at a uniform level, 
we still see that oscillations of abundance and scarcity can- 
not be avoided. And among the creatures uncared for by 
man, such oscillations are usually more marked. After a 
race of organisms has been greatly thinned by enemies 
or lack of food, its surviving members become more favour- 
ably circumstanced than usual. During the decline in 
their numbers their food has grown relatively more abun- 
dant; while their enemies have diminished from want of 
prey. The conditions thus remain for some time favourable 
to their increase; and they multiply rapidly. By and by 
their food is rendered relatively scarce, at the same time that 
their enemies have become more numerous ; and the destroy- 
ing influences being thus in excess, their number begins to 
diminish again. Yet one more rhythm, extremely 

slow in its action, may be traced in the phenomena of Life, 
contemplated under their most general aspect. The re- 
searches of palaeontologists show that there have been going 
on, during the vast period of which our sedimentary rocks 
bear record, successive changes of organic forms. Species 
have appeared, become abundant, and then disappeared. 
Genera, at first constituted of but few species, have for a 
time gone on growing more multiform; and then have 
begun to decline in the number of their subdivisions: leav- 
ing at last but one or two representatives, or none at all. 
During longer epochs whole orders have thus arisen, cul- 
minated, and dwindled away. And even those wider divis- 
ions containing many orders have similarly undergone a 
gradual rise, a high tide, and a long-continued ebb. The 
stalked Crinoidea, for example, which, during the carbon- 
iferous epoch, became abundant, have almost disappeared: 
only a single species being extant. Once a large family of 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 273 

molluscs, the Brachiojpoda have now become rare. The 
shelled Cephalopods, at one time dominant among the in- 
habitants of the ocean, both in number of forms and of 
individuals, are in our day nearly extinct. And after an 
" age of reptiles," there has come an age in which reptiles 
have been in great measure supplanted by mammals. 
Whether these vast rises and falls of different kinds of life 
ever undergo anything approaching to repetitions, (which 
they may possibly do in correspondence with those vast 
cycles of elevation and subsidence that produce continents 
and oceans,) it is sufficiently clear that Life on the Earth 
has not progressed uniformly, but in immense undulations. 

§ 86. It is not manifest that the changes of conscious- 
ness are in any sense rhythmical. Yet here, too, analysis 
proves both that the mental state existing at any moment is 
not uniform, but is decomposable into rapid oscillations; 
and also that mental states pass through longer intervals of 
increasing and decreasing intensity. 

Though while attending to any single sensation, or any 
group of related sensations constituting the consciousness of 
an object, we seem to remain for the time in a persistent and 
homogeneous condition of mind, a careful self-examination 
shows that this apparently unbroken mental state is in truth 
traversed by a number of minor states, in which various 
other sensations and perceptions are rapidly presented and 
disappear. From the admitted fact that thinking consists 
in the establishment of relations, it is a necessary corollary 
that the maintenance of consciousness in any one state to the 
entire exclusion of other states, would be a cessation of 
thought, that is, of consciousness. So that any seemingly 
continuous feeling, say of pressure, really consists of por- 
tions of that feeling perpetually recurring after the mo- 
mentary intrusion of other feelings and ideas — quick 
thoughts concerning the place where it is felt, the exter- 
nal object producing it, its consequences, and other things 



274 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

suggested by association. Thus there is going on an ex- 
tremely rapid departure from, and return to, that particular 
mental state which we regard as persistent. Besides the 
evidence of rhythm in consciousness which direct analysis 
thus affords, we may gather further evidence from the cor- 
relation between feeling and movement. Sensations and 
emotions expend themselves in producing muscular contrac- 
tions. If a sensation or emotion were strictly continuous, 
there would be a continuous discharge along those motor 
nerves acted upon. But so far as experiments with artificial 
stimuli enable us to judge, a continuous discharge along the 
nerve leading to a muscle, does not contract it : a broken dis- 
charge is required — a rapid succession of shocks. Hence 
muscular contraction pre-supposes that rhythmic state of 
consciousness which direct observation discloses. A 

much more conspicuous rhythm, having longer waves, is 
seen during the outflow of emotion into dancing, poetry, 
and music. The current of mental energy that shows 
itself in these modes of bodily action, is not continuous, but 
falls into a succession of pulses. The measure of a dance 
is produced by the alternation of strong muscular contrac- 
tions with weaker ones ; and, save in measures of the simplest 
order such as are found among barbarians and children, 
this alternation is compounded with longer rises and falls 
in the degree of muscular excitement. Poetry is a form of 
speech which results when the emphasis is regularly recur- 
rent ; that is, when the muscular effort of pronunciation has 
definite periods of greater and less intensity — periods that 
are complicated with others of like nature answering to the 
successive verses. Music, in still more various ways, exem- 
plifies the law. There are the recurring bars, in each of 
which there is a primary and a secondary beat. There is the 
alternate increase and decrease of muscular strain, implied 
by the ascents and descents to the higher and lower notes — 
ascents and descents composed of smaller waves, breaking 
the rises and falls of the larger ones, in a mode peculiar to 






THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 275 

each melody. And then we have, further, the alternation 
of piano and forte passages. That these several kinds of 
rhythm, characterizing aesthetic expression, are not, in the 
common sense of the word, artificial, but are intenser forms 
of an undulatory movement habitually generated by feeling 
in its bodily discharge, is shown by the fact that they are all 
traceable in ordinary speech; which in every sentence has its 
primary and secondary emphases, and its cadence contain- 
ing a chief rise and fall complicated with subordinate rises 
and falls; and which is accompanied by a more or less 
oscillatory action of the limbs when the emotion is 
great. Still longer undulations may be observed by 

every one, in himself and in others, on occasions of extreme 
pleasure or extreme pain. Note, in the first place, that pain 
having its origin in bodily disorder, is nearly always percep- 
tibly rhythmical. During hours in which it never actually 
ceases, it has its variations of intensity — fits or paroxysms; 
and then after these hours of suffering there usually come 
hours of comparative ease. Moral pain has the like smaller 
and larger waves. One possessed by intense grief does not 
utter continuous moans, or shed tears with an equable rapid- 
ity; but these signs of passion come in recurring bursts. 
Then after a time during which such stronger and weaker 
waves of emotion alternate, there comes a calm — a time of 
comparative deaclness; to which again succeeds another in- 
terval, when dull sorrow rises afresh into acute anguish, 
with its series of paroxysms. Similarly in great delight, es- 
pecially as manifested by children who have its display less 
under control, there are visible variations in the intensity of 
feeling shown — fits of laughter and dancing about, sepa- 
rated by pauses in which smiles, and other slight manifesta- 
tions of pleasure, suffice to discharge the lessened excite- 
ment. ]NTor are there wanting evidences of mental 
undulations greater in length than any of these — undula- 
tions which take weeks, or months, or years, to complete 
themselves. We continually hear of moods which recur 



276 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

at intervals. Very many persons have their epochs of 
vivacity and depression. There are periods of industry fol- 
lowing periods of idleness; and times at which particular 
subjects or tastes are cultivated with zeal, alternating with 
times at which they are neglected. Respecting which slow 
oscillations, the only qualification to be made is, that being 
affected by numerous influences, they are comparatively 
irregular. 

§ 87. In nomadic societies the changes of place, deter- 
mined as they usually are by exhaustion or failure of the 
supply of food, are periodic; and in many cases show a 
recurrence answering to the seasons. Each tribe that has 
become in some degree fixed in its locality, goes on increas- 
ing, till under the pressures of unsatisfied desires, there re- 
sults migration of some part of it to a new region — a process 
repeated at intervals. From such excesses of population, 
and such successive waves of migration, come conflicts with 
other tribes ; which are also increasing and tending to diffuse 
themselves. This antagonism, like all others, results not in 
an uniform motion, but in an intermittent one. War, ex- 
haustion, recoil — peace, prosperity, and renewed aggres- 
sion: — see here the alternation more or less discernible in 
the military activities of both savage and civilized nations. 
And irregular as is this rhythm, it is not more so than the 
different sizes of the societies, and the extremely involved 
causes of variation in their strengths, would lead us to an- 
ticipate. 

Passing from external to internal changes, we meet with 
this backward and forward movement under many forms. 
In the currents of commerce it is especially conspicuous. 
Exchange during early times is almost wholly carried on at 
fairs, held at long intervals in the chief centres of popula- 
tion. The flux and reflux of people and commodities which 
each of these exhibits, becomes more frequent as national 
development leads to greater social activity. The more 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 277 

rapid rhythm of weekly markets begins to supersede the 
slow rhythm of fairs. And eventually the process of ex- 
change becomes at certain places so active, as to bring about 
daily meetings of buyers and sellers — a daily wave of 
accumulation and distribution of cotton, or corn, or 
capital. If from exchange we turn to production and 

consumption, we see undulations, much longer indeed in 
their periods, but almost equally obvious. Supply and de- 
mand are never completely adapted to each other; but each 
of them from time to time in excess, leads presently to an 
excess of the other. Farmers who have one season produced 
wheat very abundantly, are disgusted with the consequent 
low price; and next season, sowing a much smaller quan- 
tity, bring to market a deficient crop; whence follows a 
converse effect. Consumption undergoes parallel undula- 
tions that need not be specified. The balancing of supplies 
between different districts, too, entails analogous oscilla- 
tions. A place at which some necessary of life is scarce, 
becomes a place to which currents of it are set up from 
other places where it is relatively abundant; and these 
currents from all sides lead to a wave of accumulation where 
they meet — a glut: whence follows a recoil — a partial re- 
turn of the currents. But the undulatory character 
of these actions is perhaps best seen in the rises and falls of 
prices. These, given in numerical measures which may be 
tabulated and reduced to diagrams, show us in the clearest 
manner how commercial movements are compounded of 
oscillations of various magnitudes. The price of consols or 
the price of wheat, as thus represented, is seen to undergo 
vast ascents and descents whose highest and lowest points 
are reached only in the course of years. These largest waves 
of variation are broken by others extending over periods of 
perhaps many months. On these again come others having 
a week or two's duration. And were the changes marked in 
greater detail, we should have the smaller undulations that 
take place each day, and the still smaller ones which brokers 



278 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

telegraph from hour to hour. The whole outline would 
show a complication like that of a vast ocean-swell, on whose 
surface there rise large billows, which themselves bear 
waves of moderate size, covered by wavelets, that are rough- 
ened by a minute ripple. Similar diagramatic representa- 
tions of births, marriages, and deaths, of disease, of crime, 
of pauperism, exhibit involved conflicts of rhythmical mo- 
tions throughout society under these several aspects. 

There are like characteristics in social changes of a more 
complex kind. Both in England and among continental 
nations, the action and reaction of political progress have 
come to be generally recognized. Religion, besides its occa- 
sional revivals of smaller magnitude, has its long periods of 
exaltation and depression — generations of belief and self- 
mortification, following generations of indifference and lax- 
ity. There are poetical epochs, and epochs in which the 
sense of the beautiful seems almost dormant. Philosophy, 
after having been awhile predominant, lapses for a long 
season into neglect; and then again slowly revives. Each 
science has its eras of deductive reasoning, and its eras when 
attention is chiefly directed to collecting and colligating 
facts. And how in such minor but more obtrusive phenom- 
ena as those of fashion, there are ever going on oscillations 
from one extreme to the other, is a trite observation. 

As may be foreseen, social rhythms well illustrate the 
irregularity that results from combination of many causes. 
"Where the variations are those of one simple element in na- 
tional life, as the supply of a particular commodity, we do 
indeed witness a return, after many involved movements, to 
a previous condition — the price may become what it was be- 
fore: implying a like relative abundance. But where the 
action is one into which many factors enter, there is never 
a recurrence of exactly the same state. A political reaction 
never brings round just the old form of things. The 
rationalism of the present day differs widely from the 
rationalism of the last century. And though fashion from 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION". 279 

time to time revives extinct types of dress, these always 
re-appear with decided modifications. 

§ 88. The universality of this principle suggests a ques- 
tion like that raised in foregoing cases. Rhythm being 
manifested in all forms of movement, we have reason to sus- 
pect that it is determined by some primordial condition to 
action in general. The tacit implication is that it is de- 
ducible from the persistence of force. This we shall find to 
be the fact. 

When the prong of a tuning-fork is pulled on one side 
by the finger, a certain extra tension is produced among its 
cohering particles; which resist any force that draws them 
out of their state of equilibrium. As much force as the fin- 
ger exerts in pulling the prong aside, so much opposing force 
is brought into play among the cohering particles. Hence, 
when the prong is liberated, it is urged back by a force equal 
to that used in deflecting it. When, therefore, the prong 
reaches its original position, the force impressed on it during 
its recoil, has generated in it a corresponding amount of mo- 
mentum — an amount of momentum nearly equivalent, that 
is, to the force originally impressed (nearly, we must say, 
because a certain portion has gone in communicating mo- 
tion to the air, and a certain other portion has been trans- 
formed into heat). This momentum carries the prong be- 
yond the position of rest, nearly as far as it was originally 
drawn in the reverse direction; until at length, being grad- 
ually used up in producing an opposing tension among the 
particles, it is all lost. The opposing tension into which the 
expended momentum has been transformed, then generates 
a second recoil; and so on continually — the vibration even- 
tually ceasing only because at each movement a certain 
amount of force goes in creating atmospheric and etherial 
undulations. Xow it needs but to contemplate this repeated 
action and reaction, to see that it is, like every action and re- 
action, a consequence of the persistence of force. The force 



280 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 

exerted by the finger in bending the prong cannot disappear. 
Under what form then does it exist? It exists under the 
form of that cohesive tension which it has generated among 
the particles. This cohesive tension cannot cease without an 
equivalent result. What is its equivalent result? The 
momentum generated in the prong while being carried back 
to its position of rest. This momentum too — what becomes 
of it? It must either continue as momentum, or produce 
some correlative force of equal amount. It cannot continue 
as momentum, since change of place is resisted by the cohe- 
sion of the parts; and thus it gradually disappears by being 
transformed into tension among these parts. This is re- 
transformed into the equivalent momentum ; and so on con- 
tinuously. If instead of motion that is directly 
antagonized by the cohesion of matter, we consider motion 
through space, the same truth presents itself under another 
form. Though here no opposing force seems at work, and 
therefore no cause of rhythm is apparent, yet its own accu- 
mulated momentum must eventually carry the moving body 
beyond the body attracting it ; and so must become a force at 
variance with that which generated it. From this conflict, 
rhythm necessarily results as in the foregoing case. The 
force embodied as momentum in a given direction, cannot be 
destroyed; and if it eventually disappears, it re-appears in 
the reaction on the retarding body; which begins afresh to 
draw the now arrested mass back from its aphelion. The 
only conditions under which there could be absence of 
rhythm — the only conditions, that is, under which there 
could be a continuous motion through space in the same 
straight line for ever, would be the existence of an infinity 
void of everything but the moving body. And neither of 
these conditions can be represented in thought. Infinity is 
inconceivable; and so also is a motion which never had a 
commencement in some pre-existing source of power. 

Thus, then, rhythm is a necessary characteristic of all 
motion. Given the co-existence everywhere of antagonist 



THE RHYTHM OF MOTION. 281 

forces — a postulate which, as we have seen, is necessitated 
by the form of our experience — and rhythm is an inevitable 
corollary from the persistence of force. 

[Note. — In the Edinburgh Review for January, 1884, there was an antag- 
onistic criticism of this work. The writer of the criticism, Lord Grimthorpe, 
made much of the exception furnished by non-periodic comets to the law 
above set forth. I was about to admit this exception when, on looking into 
the matter, I found no need for doing so. Though five or six cometary orbits 
are said to be hyperbolic, yet, as I learn from one who has paid special atten- 
tion to comets (having tabulated the directions of their aphelia), " no such 
orbit has, I believe, been computed for a well-observed comet." Hence the 
probability that all the orbits are ellipses is overwhelming. Ellipses and 
hyperbolas have countless varieties of forms, but there is only one form of 
parabola ; or, to speak literally, all parabolas arc similar, while there are in- 
finitely numerous dissimilar ellipses and dissimilar hyperbolas. Consequently, 
anything coming to the Sun from a great distance must have one exact amount 
of proper motion to produce a parabola : all other amounts would give hyper- 
bolas or ellipses. And if there are no hyperbolic orbits, then it is infinity to 
one that all the orbits are elliptical.] 



CHAPTER XL 

RECAPITULATION, CRITICISM, AND RECOMMENCEMENT. 

§ 89. Let us pause awhile to consider how far the con- 
tents of the foregoing chapters go towards forming a body 
of knowledge such as was defined at the outset as constitut- 
ing Philosophy. 

In respect of its generality, the proposition enunciated 
and exemplified in each chapter, is of the required kind — is 
a proposition transcending those class-limits which Science, 
as currently understood, recognizes. " The Indestructibil- 
ity of Matter " is a truth not belonging to mechanics more 
than to chemistry, a truth assumed alike by molecular phys- 
ics and the physics that deals with sensible masses, a truth 
which the astronomer and the biologist equally take for 
granted. Not merely do those divisions of Science which 
deal with the movements of celestial and terrestrial bodies 
postulate " The Continuity of Motion/' but it is no less pos- 
tulated in the physicist's investigations into the phenomena 
of light and heat, and is tacitly, if not avowedly, implied in 
the generalizations of the higher sciences. So, too, " The 
Persistence of Force," involved in each of the preceding 
propositions, is co-extensive with them, as is also its corol- 
lary, " The Persistence of Relations among Forces." These 
are not truths of a high generality, but they are universal 
truths. Passing to the deductions drawn from 

them, we see the same thing. That force is transformable, 
and that between its correlates there exist quantitative 

282 



RECAPITULATION, CRITICISM, AND RECOMMENCEMENT. 283 

equivalences, are ultimate facts not to be classed with those 
of mechanics, or thermology, or electricity, or magnetism; 
but they are illustrated throughout phenomena of every 
order, up to those of mind and society. Similarly, the law 
that motion follows the line of least resistance or the line of 
greatest traction or the resultant of the two, we found to be 
an all-pervading law; conformed to alike by each planet in 
its orbit, and by the moving matters, aerial, liquid, and solid, 
on its surface — conformed to no less by every organic 
movement and process than by every inorganic movement 
and process. And so likewise, in the chapter just closed, it 
has been shown that rhythm is exhibited universally, from 
the slow gyrations of double stars down to the inconceivably 
rapid oscillations of molecules — from such terrestrial 
changes as those of recurrent glacial epochs and gradually 
alternating elevations and subsidences, down to those of the 
winds and tides and waves ; and is no less conspicuous in the 
functions of living organisms, from the pulsations of the 
heart up to the paroxysms of the emotions. 

Thus these truths have the character which constitutes 
them parts of Philosophy, properly so called. They are 
truths which unify concrete phenomena belonging to all 
divisions of Xature; and so must be components of that 
complete, coherent conception of things which Philosophy 
seeks. 

§ 90. But now what parts do these truths play in form- 
ing such a conception? Does any one of them singly convey 
an idea of the Cosmos: meaning by this word the totality 
of the manifestations of the Unknowable? Do all of them 
taken together yield us an adequate idea of this kind? Do 
they even when thought of in combination compose any- 
thing like such an idea? To each of these questions the 
answer must be — No. 

Neither these truths nor any other such truths, separate- 
ly or jointly, constitute that integrated knowledge in which 



284 RECAPITULATION, CRITICISM, AND RECOMMENCEMENT. 

only Philosophy finds its goal. It has been supposed by 
one thinker that when Science has succeeded in reducing all 
more complex laws to some most simple law, as of molecular 
action, knowledge will have reached its limit. Another 
authority has tacitly asserted that all minor facts are so 
merged in the major fact that the force everywhere in action 
is nowhere lost, that to express this is to express " the consti- 
tution of the universe." But either conclusion implies a 
misapprehension of the problem. 

For these are all analytical truths, and no analytical 
truth — no number of analytical truths, will make up that 
synthesis of thought which alone can be an interpretation of 
the synthesis of things. The decomposition of phenomena 
into their elements, is but a preparation for understanding 
phenomena in their state of composition, as actually mani- 
fested. To have ascertained the laws of the factors is not 
at all to have ascertained the laws of their co-operation. 
The question is, not how any factor, Matter or Motion or 
Force, behaves by itself, or under some imagined simple 
conditions ; nor is it even how one factor behaves under the 
complicated conditions of actual existence. The thing to 
be expressed is the joint product of the factors under all its 
various aspects. Only when we can formulate the total 
process, have we gained that knowledge of it which Philoso- 
phy aspires to. A clear comprehension of this matter is im- 
portant enough to justify some further exposition. 

§ 91. Suppose a chemist, a geologist, and a biologist, 
have given the deepest explanations furnished by their 
respective sciences, of the processes going on in a burning 
candle, in a region changed by earthquake, and in a grow- 
ing plant. To the assertion that their explanations are not 
the deepest possible, they will probably rejoin — " What 
would you have? "What remains to be said of combustion 
when light and heat and the dissipation of substance have 
all been traced down to the liberation of molecular motion 



1 



RECAPITULATION, CRITICISM, AND RECOMMENCEMENT. 285 

as their common cause? When all the actions accompany- 
ing an earthquake are explained as consequent upon the 
slow loss of the Earth's internal heat, how is it possible to 
go lower? When the influence of light on the oscillations 
of molecules has been proved to account for vegetal growth, 
what is the imaginable further rationale? You ask for a 
synthesis. You say that knowledge does not end in the 
resolution of phenomena into the actions of certain factors, 
each conforming to ascertained laws; but that the laws of 
the factors having been ascertained, there comes the chief 
problem — to show how from their joint action result the 
phenomena in all their complexity. Well, do not the above 
interpretations satisfy this requirement? Do we not, start- 
ing with the molecular motions of the elements concerned 
in combustion, build up synthetically an explanation of the 
light, and the heat, and the produced gases, and the move- 
ments of the produced gases? Do we not, setting out 
from the still-continued radiation of its heat, construct by 
synthesis a clear conception of the Earth's nucleus as con- 
tracting, its crust as collapsing, as becoming shaken and 
fissured and contorted and burst through by lava? And 
is it not the same with the chemical changes and accumula- 
tion of matter in the growing plant? " 

To all which the reply is, that the ultimate interpretation 
to be reached by Philosophy, is a universal synthesis com- 
prehending and consolidating such special syntheses. The 
synthetic explanations which Science gives, even up to 
the most general, are more or less independent of one an- 
other. Though they may have like elements in them, they 
are not united by the likeness of their essential structures. 
Is it to be supposed that in the burning candle, in the 
quaking Earth, and in the organism that is increasing, 
the processes as wholes are unrelated to one another? If it 
is admitted that each of the factors concerned always oper- 
ates in conformity to a law, is it to be concluded that their 
co-operation conforms to no law? These various changes, 



286 RECAPITULATION, CRITICISM, AND RECOMMENCEMENT. 

artificial and natural, organic and inorganic, which for con- 
venience sake we distinguish, are not from the highest 
point of view to be distinguished; for they are all changes 
going on in the same Cosmos, and forming parts of one 
vast transformation. The play of forces is essentially the 
same in principle throughout the whole region explored by 
our intelligence; and though, varying infinitely in their 
proportions and combinations, they work out results every- 
where more or less different, and often seeming to have no 
kinship, yet there cannot but be among these results a 
fundamental community. The question to be answered is 
— what is the common element in the histories of all con- 
crete processes? 

§ 92. To resume, then, we have now to seek a law of 
composition of phenomena, co-extensive with those laws of 
their components set forth in the foregoing chapters. Hav- 
ing seen that matter is indestructible, motion continuous, 
and force persistent — having seen that forces are every- 
where undergoing transformation, and that motion, always 
following the line of least resistance, is invariably rhythmic, 
it remains to discover the similarly-invariable formula ex- 
pressing the combined consequences of the actions thus sepa- 
rately formulated. 

What must be the general character of such a formula? 
It must be one that specifies the course of the changes 
undergone by both the matter and the motion. Every 
transformation implies re-arrangement of component parts ; 
and a definition of it, while saying what has happened to the 
sensible or insensible portions of substance concerned, must 
also say what has happened to the movements, sensible or 
insensible, which the re-arrangement of parts implies. 
Further, unless the transformation always goes on in the 
same way and at the same rate, the formula must specify the 
conditions under which it commences, ceases, and is re- 
versed. 



RECAPITULATION, CRITICISM, AND RECOMMENCEMENT. 287 

The law we seek, therefore, must be the law of the con- 
tiniwus redistribution of matter and motion. Absolute rest 
and permanence do not exist. Every object, no less than 
the aggregate of all objects, undergoes from instant to 
instant some alteration of state. Gradually or quickly it is 
receiving motion or losing motion, while some or all of its 
parts are simultaneously changing their relations to one 
another. And the question to be answered is — What 
dynamic principle, true of the metamorphosis as a whole 
and in its details, expresses these ever-changing relations? 

This chapter has served its purpose if it has indicated the 
nature of the ultimate problem. The discussion on which 
we are now to enter, may fitly open with a new presentation 
of this problem, carrying with it the clear implication that a 
Philosophy, rightly so-called, can come into existence only 
by solving the problem. 



CHAPTER XII. 



EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 



§ 93. An entire history of anything must include its ap- 
pearance out of the imperceptible and its disappearance into 
the imperceptible. Be it a single object or the whole uni- 
verse, any account which begins with it in a concrete form, 
or leaves off with it in a concrete form, is incomplete ; since 
there remains an era of its knowable existence undescribed 
and unexplained. Admitting, or rather asserting, that 
knowledge is limited to the phenomenal, we have, by impli- 
cation, asserted that the sphere of knowledge is co-extensive 
with the phenomenal — co-extensive with all modes of the 
Unknowable that can affect consciousness. Hence, wher- 
ever we now find Being so conditioned as to act on our 
senses, there arise the questions — how came it thus condi- 
tioned? and how will it cease to be thus conditioned? Un- 
less on the assumption that it acquired a sensible form at the 
moment of perception, and lost its sensible form the mo- 
ment after perception, it must have had an antecedent exist- 
ence under this sensible form, and will have a subsequent 
existence under this sensible form. These preceding and 
succeeding existences under sensible forms, are possible sub- 
jects of knowledge; and knowledge has obviously not 
reached its limits until it has united the past, present, and 
future histories into a whole. 

The sayings and doings of daily life imply more or less 
such knowledge, actual or potential, of states which have 

288 



EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 239 

gone before and of states which will come after; and, in- 
deed, the greater part of our knowledge involves these 
elements. Knowing any man personally, implies having be- 
fore seen him under a shape much the same as his present 
shape; and knowing him simply as a man, implies the in- 
ferred antecedent states of infancy, childhood, and youth. 
Though the man's future is not known specifically, it is 
known generally: the facts that he will die and that his 
body will decay, are facts which complete in outline the 
changes to be hereafter gone through by him. So with all 
the objects arourM. The pre-existence under concrete forms 
of the woollens, silks, and cottons we wear, we can trace 
some distance back. We are certain that our furniture 
consists of matter which was aggregated by trees within 
these few generations. Even of the stones composing the 
walls of the house, we are able to say that years or centuries 
ago, they formed parts of some stratum imbedded in the 
earth. Moreover, respecting the hereafter of the wearable 
fabrics, the furniture, and the walls, we can assert thus 
much, that they are all in process of decay, and in 
periods of various lengths will lose their present coherent 
shapes. This general information which all men 

gain concerning the past and future careers of surround- 
ing things, Science has extended, and continues unceas- 
ingly to extend. To the biography of the individual man, 
it adds an intra-uterine biography beginning with him as a 
microscopic germ; and it follows out his ultimate changes 
until it finds his body resolved into the gaseous products 
of decomposition. Not stopping short at the sheep's back 
and the caterpillar's cocoon, it identifies in wool and silk 
the nitrogenous matters absorbed by the sheep and the cater- 
pillar from plants. The substance of a plant's leaves, in 
common with the wood from which furniture is made, it 
again traces back to the vegetal assimilation of gases from 
the air and of certain minerals from the soil. And in- 
quiring whence came the stratum of stone that was quar- 



290 EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 

ried to build the house, it finds that this was once a loose 
sediment deposited in an estuary or on the sea bottom. 

If, then, the past and the future of each object, is a 
sphere of possible knowledge; and if intellectual progress 
consists largely, if not mainly, in widening our acquaint- 
ance with this past and this future; it is obvious that we 
have not acquired all the information within the grasp of 
our intelligence until we can, in some way or other, express 
the whole past and the whole future of each object and the 
aggregate of objects. Usually able, as we are, to say of any 
visible tangible thing how it came to have its present shape 
and consistence; we are fully possessed with the conviction 
that, setting out abruptly as we do with some substance 
which already had a concrete form, our history is incom- 
plete: the thing had a history preceding the state with 
which we started. Hence our Theory of Things, considered 
individually or in their totality, is confessedly imperfect so 
long as any past or future portions of their sensible exist- 
ences are unaccounted for. 

May it not be inferred that Philosophy has to formulate 
this passage from the imperceptible into the perceptible, 
and again from the perceptible into the imperceptible? Is 
it not clear that this general law of the redistribution of mat- 
ter and motion, which we lately saw is required to unify the 
various kinds of changes, must also be one that unifies the 
successive changes which sensible existences, separately and 
together, pass through? Only by some formula combining 
these characters can knowledge be reduced to a coherent 
whole. 

§ 94. Already in the foregoing paragraphs the outline 
of such a formula is foreshadowed. Already in recognizing 
the fact that Science, tracing back the genealogies of vari- 
ous objects, finds their components were once in diffused 
states, and pursuing their histories forwards, finds diffused 
states will be again assumed by them, we have recognized 



EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 291 

the fact that the formula must be oue comprehending the 
two opposite processes of concentration and diffusion. And 
already in thus describing the general nature of the formula, 
we have approached a specific expression of it. The change 
from a diffused, imperceptible state, to a concentrated, per- 
ceptible state, is an integration of matter and concomitant 
dissipation of motion ; and the change from a concentrated, 
perceptible state, to a diffused, imperceptible state, is an 
absorption of motion and concomitant disintegration of 
matter. These are truisms. Constituent parts cannot ag- 
gregate without losing some of their relative motion; and 
they cannot separate without more relative motion being 
given to them. We are not concerned here with any motion 
which the components of a mass have with respect to other 
masses: we are concerned only with the motion they have 
with respect to one another. Confining our attention to this 
internal motion, and to the matter possessing it, the axiom 
which we have to recognize is that a progressing consolida- 
tion involves a decrease of internal motion; and that in- 
crease of internal motion involves a progressing unconsolida- 
tion. 

When taken together, the two opposite processes thus 
formulated constitute the history of every sensible exist- 
ence, under its simplest form. Loss of motion and conse- 
quent integration, eventually followed by gain of motion 
and consequent disintegration — see here a statement com- 
prehensive of the entire series of changes passed through: 
comprehensive in an extremely general way, as any state- 
ment which holds of sensible existences at large must be; 
but still, comprehensive in the sense that all the changes 
gone through fall within it. This will probably be thought 
too sweeping an assertion; but we shall quickly find it 
justified. 

§ 95. For here we have to note the further all-impor- 
tant fact, that every change undergone by every sensible ex- 



292 EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 

istence, is a change in one or other of these two opposite 
directions. Apparently an aggregate which has passed out 
of some originally discrete state into a concrete state, there- 
after remains for an indefinite period without undergoing 
further integration, and without beginning to disintegrate. 
But this is untrue. All things are growing or decaying, 
accumulating matter or wearing away, integrating or disin- 
tegrating. All things are varying in their temperatures, 
contracting or expanding, integrating or disintegrating. 
Both the quantity of matter contained in an aggregate, and 
the quantity of motion contained in it, increase or decrease ; 
and increase or decrease of either is an advance towards 
greater diffusion or greater concentration. Continued losses 
or gains of substance, however slow, imply ultimate disap- 
pearance or indefinite enlargement; and losses or gains of 
the insensible motion we call heat, will, if continued, pro- 
duce complete integration or complete disintegration. The 
sun's rays falling on a cold mass, augmenting the molecular 
motions throughout it, and causing it to occupy more space, 
are beginning a process which if carried far will disintegrate 
the mass into liquid, and if carried farther will disintegrate 
the liquid into gas; and the diminution of bulk which a 
volume of gas undergoes as it parts with some of its molecu- 
lar motion, is a diminution which, if the loss of molecular 
motion proceeds, will presently be followed by liquefaction 
and eventually by solidification. And since there is no such 
thing as an absolutely constant temperature, the necessary 
inference is that every aggregate is at every moment pro- 
gressing towards either greater concentration or greater 
diffusion. 

Not only does all change consisting in the addition or 
subtraction of matter come under this head; and not only 
does this head include all change called thermal expansion 
or contraction; but it is also, in a general way, comprehen- 
sive of all change distinguished as transposition. Every in- 
ternal redistribution which leaves the component molecules 



EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 203 

or the constituent portions of a mass differently placed with 
respect to one another, is sure to be at the same time a 
progress towards integration or towards disintegration — is 
sure to have altered in some degree the total space occupied. 
For when the parts have been moved relatively to one 
another, the chances are infinity to one that their average 
distances from the common centre of the aggregate are no 
longer the same. Hence whatever be the special character 
of the redistribution — be it that of superficial accretion or 
detachment, be it that of general expansion or contraction, 
be it that of re-arrangement, it is always an advance in 
integration or disintegration. It is always this, though it 
may at the same time be something further. 

§ 96. A general idea of these universal actions under 
their simplest aspects having been obtained, we may now 
consider them under certain relatively complex aspects. 
Changes towards greater concentration or greater diffusion, 
nearly always proceed after a manner much more involved 
than that above described. Thus far we have supposed one 
or other of the two opposite processes to go on alone — we 
have supposed an aggregate to be either losing motion and 
integrating or gaining motion and disintegrating. But 
though it is true that every change furthers one or other of 
these processes, it is not true that either process is ever 
wholly unqualified by the other. For each aggregate is at 
all times both gaining motion and losing motion. 

Every mass from a grain of sand to a planet, radiates 
heat to other masses, and absorbs heat radiated by other 
masses; and in so far as it does the one it becomes integrated, 
while in so far as it does the other it becomes disintegrated. 
Ordinarily in inorganic objects this double process works 
but unobtrusive effects. Only in a few cases, among whicli 
that of a cloud is the most familiar, does the conflict 
produce rapid and marked transformations. One of these 
floating bodies of vapour expands and dissipates, if the 



204 EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 

amount of molecular motion it receives from the Sun and 
Earth, exceeds that which it loses by radiation into space 
and towards adjacent surfaces; while, contrariwise, if, drift- 
ing over cold mountain tops, it radiates to them much more 
heat than it receives, the loss of molecular motion is fol- 
lowed by increasing integration of the vapour, ending in 
the aggregation of it into liquid and the fall of rain. Here, 
as elsewhere, the integration or the disintegration is a differ- 
ential result. 

In living aggregates, and more especially those classed 
as animals, these conflicting processes go on with great activ- 
ity under several forms. There is not merely what we may 
call the passive integration of matter, that results in inani- 
mate objects from simple molecular attractions; but there is 
an active integration of it under the form of food. In addi- 
tion to that passive superficial disintegration which inani- 
mate objects suffer from external agents, animals produce in 
themselves active internal disintegration, by absorbing such 
agents into their substance. While, like inorganic aggre- 
gates, they passively give off and receive motion, they are 
also active absorbers of motion latent in food, and active ex- 
penders of that motion. But notwithstanding this compli- 
cation of the two processes, and the immense exaltation of 
the conflict between them, it remains true that there is 
always a differential progress towards either integration or 
disintegration. During the earlier part of the cycle of 
changes, the integration predominates — there goes on what 
we call growth. The middle part of the cycle is usually 
characterized, not by equilibrium between the integrating 
and disintegrating processes, but by alternate excesses of 
them. And the cycle closes with a period in which the dis- 
integration, beginning to predominate, eventually puts a 
stop to integration, and undoes what integration had origi- 
nally done. At no moment are assimilation and waste so 
balanced that no increase or decrease of mass is going on. 
Even in cases where one part is growing while other parts 



EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 295 

are dwindling, and even in cases where different parts are 
differently exposed to external sources of motion so that 
some are expanding while others are contracting, the truth 
still holds. For the chances are infinity to one against 
these opposite changes balancing one another; and if they 
do not balance one another, the aggregate as a whole is 
integrating or disintegrating. 

Everywhere and to the last, therefore, the change at any 
moment going on forms a part of one or other of the two 
processes. While the general history of every aggregate is 
definable as a change from a diffused imperceptible state to 
a concentrated perceptible state, and again to a diffused im- 
perceptible state; every detail of the history is definable as 
a part of either the one change or the other. This, then, 
must be that universal law of redistribution of matter and 
motion, which serves at once to unify the seemingly diverse 
groups of changes, as well as the entire course of each group. 

§ 97. The processes thus everywhere in antagonism, and 
everywhere gaining now a temporary and now a more or 
less permanent triumph the one over the other, we call Evo- 
lution and Dissolution. Evolution under its simplest and 
most general aspect is the integration of matter and con- 
comitant dissipation of motion; while Dissolution is the ab- 
sorption of motion and concomitant disintegration of mat- 
ter. 

These titles are by no means all that is desirable; or 
rather we may say that while the last answers its purpose 
tolerably well, the first is open to grave objections. Evolu- 
tion has other meanings, some of which are incongruous 
with, and some even directly opposed to, the meaning here 
given to it. The evolution of a gas is literally an absorp- 
tion of motion and disintegration of matter, which is exactly 
the reverse of that which we here call Evolution — is that 
which we here call Dissolution. As ordinarily understood, 
to evolve is to unfold, to open and expand, to throw out, to 



296 EVOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 

emit; whereas as we understand it, the act of evolving, 
though it implies increase of a concrete aggregate, and in 
so far an expansion of it, implies that its component matter 
has passed from a more diffused to a more concentrated 
state — has contracted. The antithetical word Involution 
would much more truly express the nature of the process; 
and would, indeed, describe better the secondary characters 
of the process which we shall have to deal with presently. 
We are obliged, however, notwithstanding the liabilities to 
confusion that must result from these unlike and even con- 
tradictory meanings, to use Evolution as antithetical to Dis- 
solution. The word is now so widely recognized as signify- 
ing, not, indeed, the general process above described, but 
sundry of the most conspicuous varieties of it, and certain of 
its secondary but most remarkable accompaniments, that we 
cannot now substitute another word. All we can do is 
carefully to define the interpretation to be given to it. 

While, then, we shall by Dissolution everywhere mean 
the process tacitly implied by its ordinary meaning — the ab- 
sorption of motion and disintegration of matter; we shall 
everywhere mean by Evolution, the process which is always 
an integration of matter and dissipation of motion, but 
which, as we shall now see, is in most cases much more 
than this. 



CHAPTEK XIII. 

SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 

§ 98. Where the only forces at work are those directly 
tending to produce aggregation or diffusion, the whole his- 
tory of an aggregate will comprise no more than the ap- 
proaches of its components towards their common centre 
and their recessions from their common centre. The pro- 
cess of Evolution, including nothing beyond what was de- 
scribed at the outset of the last chapter, will be simple. 

Again, in cases where the forces which cause movements 
towards a common centre are greatly in excess of all other 
forces, any changes additional to those constituting aggre- 
gation will be comparatively insignificant — there will be 
integration scarcely at all modified by further kinds of re- 
distribution. 

Or if, because of the smallness of the mass to be inte- 
grated, or because of the little motion the mass receives from 
without in return for the motion it loses, the integration pro- 
ceeds rapidly; there will similarly be wrought but insignifi- 
cant effects on the integrating mass by incident forces, even 
though these are considerable. 

But when, conversely, the integration is but slow; either 
because the quantity of motion contained in the aggregate 
is relatively great; or because, though the quantity of 
motion which each part possesses is not relatively great, the 
large size of the aggregate prevents easy dissipation of the 
motion; or because, though motion is rapidly lost more 
21 297 



298 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 

motion is rapidly received; then, other forces will cause in 
the aggregate appreciable modifications. Along with the 
change constituting integration, there will take place sup- 
plementary changes. The Evolution, instead of being sim- 
ple, will be compound. 

The several propositions thus briefly enunciated require 
some explanation. 

§ 99. So long as a body moves freely through space, 
every force that acts on it produces an equivalent in the 
shape of some change in its motion. ~No matter how high 
its velocity, the slightest lateral traction or resistance causes 
it to deviate from its line of movement — causes it to move 
towards the new source of traction or away from the new 
source of resistance, just as much as it would do had it no 
other motion. And the effect of the perturbing influence 
goes on accumulating in the ratio of the squares of the times 
during which its action continues uniform. This same body, 
however, will, if it is united in certain ways with other 
bodies, cease to be moveable by small incident forces. 
When it is held fast by gravitation or cohesion, these small 
incident forces, instead of giving it some relative motion 
through space, are otherwise dissipated. 

What here holds of masses, holds, in a qualified way, of 
the sensible parts of masses, and of molecules. As the 
sensible parts of a mass, and the molecules of a mass, are, 
by virtue of their aggregation, not perfectly free, it is not 
true of each of them, as of a body moving through space, 
that every incident force produces an equivalent change of 
position: part of the force goes in working other changes. 
But in proportion as the parts or the molecules are feebly 
bound together, incident forces effect marked re-arrange- 
ments among them. At the one extreme, where the in- 
tegration is so slight that the parts, sensible or insensible, 
are almost independent, they are almost completely amen- 
able to every additional action; and along with the con- 



[ 



SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 299 

centration going on there go on other re-distributions. 
Contrariwise, where the parts have approached within such 
small distances that what we call the attraction of cohesion 
is great, additional actions, unless intense, cease to have 
much power to cause secondary re-arrangements. The 
firmly-united parts no longer readily change their relative 
positions in obedience to small perturbing influences; but 
each small perturbing influence usually does little or noth- 
ing more than temporarily modify the insensible molecular 
motions. 

How may we best express this difference in the most 
general terms ? An aggregate that is widely diffused, or but 
little integrated, is an aggregate that contains a large quan- 
tity of motion — actual or potential or both. An aggregate 
that has become completely integrated or dense, is one that 
contains comparatively little motion : most of the motion its 
parts once had has been lost during the integration that has 
rendered it dense. Hence, other things equal, in propor- 
tion to the quantity of motion which an aggregate contains 
will be the quantity of secondary change in the arrangement 
of its parts that accompanies the primary change in their 
arrangement. Hence also, other things equal, in proportion 
to the time during which the internal motion is retained, will 
be the quantity of this secondary re-distribution that accom- 
panies the primary re-distribution. It matters not how these 
conditions are fulfilled. Whether the internal motion con- 
tinues great because the components are of a kind that will 
not readily aggregate, or because surrounding conditions 
prevent them from parting with their motion, or because 
the loss of their motion is impeded by the size of the aggre- 
gate they form, or because they directly or indirectly obtain 
more motion in place of that which they lose; it through- 
out remains true that much retained internal motion must 
render secondary re-distribution facile, and that long re- 
tention of it must make possible an accumulation of such 
secondary re-distributions. Conversely, the non-fulfilment 



300 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION 

of these conditions, however caused, entails opposite results. 
Be it that the components of the aggregate have special 
aptitudes to integrate quickly, or be it that the smallness of 
the aggregate formed of them permits the easy escape of 
their motion, or be it that they receive little or no motion 
in exchange for that which they part with; it alike holds 
that but little secondary re-distribution can accompany the 
primary re-distribution constituting their integration. 

These abstract propositions will not be fully understood 
without illustrations. Let us, before studying simple and 
compound Evolution as thus determined, contemplate a few 
cases in which the quantity of internal motion is artificially 
changed, and note the effects on the re-arrangement of 
parts. 

§ 100. "We may fitly begin with a familiar experience, 
introducing the general principle under a rude but easily 
comprehensible form. When a vessel has been filled to the 
brim with loose fragments, shaking the vessel causes them 
to settle down into less space, so that more may be put in. 
And when among the fragments there are some of much 
greater specific gravity than the rest, these, in the course of 
a prolonged shaking, find their way to the bottom. What 
now is the meaning of such results, when expressed in 
general terms? We' have a group of units acted on by an 
incident force — the attraction of the Earth. So long as 
these units are not agitated, this incident force produces no 
changes in their relative positions; agitate them, and im- 
mediately their loose arrangement passes into a more com- 
pact arrangement. Again, so long as they are not agitated, 
the incident force cannot separate the heavier units from 
the lighter; agitate them, and immediately the heavier units 
begin to segregate. Mechanical disturbances of 

more minute kinds, acting on the parts of much denser ag- 
gregates, produce analogous effects. A piece of iron which, 
when it leaves the workshop, is fibrous in structure, be- 



SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 301 

comes crystalline if exposed to a perpetual jar. The polar 
forces mutually exercised by the atoms, fail to change the 
disorderly arrangement into an orderly arrangement while 
the atoms are relatively quiescent; but these forces succeed 
in re-arranging them when the atoms are kept in a state of 
intestine agitation. Similarly, the fact that a bar of steel 
suspended in the magnetic meridian and repeatedly struck, 
becomes magnetized, is ascribed to a re-arrangement of par- 
ticles that is produced by the magnetic force of the Earth 
when vibrations are propagated through them, but is not 
otherwise produced. A T ow imperfectly as these 

cases parallel the mass of those we are considering, they 
nevertheless serve roughly to illustrate the effect which 
adding to the quantity of motion an aggregate contains, has 
in facilitating re-arrangement of its parts. 

More fully illustrative are the instances in which, by ar- 
tificially adding to or subtracting from that molecular mo- 
tion which we call its heat, we give an aggregate increased 
or diminished facility of re-arranging its molecules. The 
process of tempering steel or annealing glass, shows us that 
internal re-distribution is aided by insensible vibrations, as 
we have just seen it to be by sensible vibrations. When 
some molten glass is dropped into water, and when its out- 
side is thus, by sudden solidification, prevented from par- 
taking in that contraction which the subsequent cooling of 
the inside tends to produce; the units are left in such a 
state of tension, that the mass flies into fragments if a small 
portion of it be broken off. But if this mass be kept for a 
day or two at a considerable heat, though a heat not suffi- 
cient to alter its form or produce any sensible diminution of 
hardness, this extreme brittleness disappears: the com- 
ponent particles being thrown into greater agitation, the 
tensile forces are enabled to re-arrange them into a state of 
equilibrium. Much more conspicuously do we see 

the effect of the insensible motion called heat, where the 
re-arrangement of parts taking place is that of visible segre- 



302 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 

gation. An instance is furnished by the subsidence of fine 
precipitates. These sink down very slowly from solutions 
that are cold; while warm solutions deposit them with com- 
parative rapidity. That is to say, exalting the molecular 
oscillation throughout the mass, allows the suspended 
particles to separate more readily from the particles of 
fluid. The influence of heat on chemical changes 

is so familiar, that examples are scarcely needed. Be the 
substances concerned gaseous, liquid, or solid, it equally 
holds that their chemical unions and disunions are aided by 
rise of temperature. Affinities which do not suffice to effect 
the re-arrangement of mixed units that are in a state of 
feeble agitation, suffice to effect it when the agitation is 
raised to a certain point. And so long as this molecular mo- 
tion is not great enough to prevent those chemical cohesions 
which the affinities tend to produce, increase of it gives in- 
creased facility of chemical re-arrangement. 

Another class of facts may be adduced which, though 
not apparently, are really illustrative of the same general 
truth. Other things equal, the liquid form of matter im- 
plies a greater quantity of contained motion than the solid 
form — the liquidity is itself a consequence of such greater 
quantity. Hence, an aggregate made up partly of liquid 
matter and partly of solid matter, contains a greater quan- 
tity of motion than one which, otherwise like it, is made up 
wholly of solid matter. It is inferable, then, that a liquid- 
solid aggregate, or, as we commonly call it, a plastic aggre- 
gate, will admit of internal redistribution with comparative 
facility; and the inference is verified by experience. A 
magma of unlike substances ground up with water, while it 
continues thin allows a settlement of its heavier components 
— a separation of them from the lighter. As the water 
evaporates this separation is impeded, and ceases when the 
magma becomes very thick. But even when it has reached 
the semi-solid state in which gravitation fails to cause 
further segregation of its mixed components, other forces 



SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 303 

may still continue to produce segregation: witness the fact 
to which attention was first drawn by Mr. Babbage, that 
when the pasty mixture of ground flints and kaolin, pre- 
pared for the manufacture of porcelain, is kept some time, 
it becomes gritty and unfit for use, in consequence of the 
particles of silica separating themselves from the rest, and 
uniting together in grains; or witness the fact known to 
every housewife, that in long-kept currant-jelly the sugar 
.takes the shape of imbedded crystals. 

^o matter then under what form the motion contained 
by an aggregate exists — be it mere mechanical agitation, or 
the mechanical vibrations such as produce sound, be it 
molecular motion absorbed from without, or the constitu- 
tional molecular motion of some component liquid, the 
same truth holds throughout. Incident forces work second- 
ary re-distributions easily when the contained motion is 
large in quantity; and work them with increasing diffi- 
culty as the contained motion diminishes. 

§ 101. Yet another class of facts that fall within the 
same generalization, little as they seem related to it, must 
be indicated before proceeding. They are those presented 
by certain contrasts in chemical stability. Speaking gener- 
ally, stable compounds contain comparatively little molecu- 
lar motion; and in proportion as the contained molecular 
motion is great the instability is great. 

The common and marked illustration of this to be first 
named, is that chemical stability decreases as temperature 
increases. Compounds of which the elements are strongly 
united and compounds of which the elements are feebly 
united, are alike in this, that raising their heats or increasing 
the quantities of their contained molecular motion, dimin- 
ishes the strengths of the unions of their elements; and by 
continually adding to the quantity of contained molecular 
motion, a point is in each case reached at which the chemical 
union is destroyed. That is to say, the re-distribution of 



304 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 

matter which constitutes simple chemical decomposition, is 
easy in proportion as the quantity of contained motion is 
great. The like holds with double decomposi- 

tions. Two compounds, A B and C D, mingled together 
and kept at a low temperature, may severally remain un- 
changed — the cross affinities between their components 
may fail to cause re-distribution. Increase the heat of the 
mixture, or add to the molecular motion throughout it, and 
re-distribution takes place; ending in the formation of the. 
compounds, A C and B D. 

Another chemical truth having a like implication, is 
that chemical elements which, as they ordinarily exist, 
contain much motion, have combinations less stable than 
those of which the elements, as they ordinarily exist, contain 
little motion. The gaseous form of matter implies a rela- 
tively large amount of molecular motion; while the solid 
form implies a relatively small amount of molecular motion. 
What are the characters of their respective compounds? 
The compounds which the permanent gases form with one 
another, cannot resist high temperatures: most of them 
are easily decomposed by heat; and at a red heat, even 
the stronger ones yield up their components. On the 
other hand, the chemical unions between elements that 
are solid except at very high temperatures, are ex- 
tremely stable. In many, if not indeed in most, cases, 
such combined elements are not separable by any heat we 
can produce. 

There is, again, the relation, which appears to have a 
kindred meaning, between instability and amount of com- 
position. " In general, the molecular heat of a compound 
increases with the degree of complexity." With increase of 
complexity there also goes increased facility of decomposi- 
tion. Whence it follows that molecules which contain 
much motion in virtue of their complexity, are those of 
which the components are most readily re-distributed. 
This holds not only of the complexity resulting from the 



I 



SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 305 

union of several unlike elements; but it holds also of the 
complexity resulting from the union of the same elements 
in higher multiples. Matter has two solid states, distin- 
guished as crystalloid and colloid; of which the first is due 
to union of the individual atoms or molecules, and the sec- 
ond to the union of groups of such individual atoms or mole- 
cules; and of which the first is stable and the second 
unstable. 

But the most striking and conclusive illustration is fur- 
nished by the combinations into which nitrogen enters. 
These have the two characters of being specially unstable 
and of containing specially great quantities of motion. A 
recently-ascertained peculiarity of nitrogen, is, that instead 
of giving out heat when it combines with other elements, it 
absorbs heat. That is to say, besides carrying with it into 
the liquid or solid compound it forms, the motion which 
previously constituted it a gas, it takes up additional mo- 
tion; and where the other element with which it unites is 
gaseous, the molecular motion proper to this, also, is locked 
up in the compound. 'Now these nitrogen-compounds 
are unusually prone to decompositon ; and the decom- 
positions of many of them take place with extreme vio- 
lence. All our explosive substances are nitrogenous — the 
most terribly destructive of them all, chloride of nitrogen, 
being one which contains the immense quantity of motion 
proper to its component gases, plus a certain further quan- 
tity of motion. 

Clearly these general chemical truths, are parts of the 
more general physical truth we are tracing out. We see 
in them that what holds of sensible aggregates, holds also 
of the insensible aggregates we call molecules. Like the 
aggregates formed of them, these, ultimate aggregates be- 
come more or less integrated according as they lose or gain 
motion; and like them also, according as they contain much 
or little motion, they are liable to undergo secondary re-dis- 
tributions of parts along with the primary re-distribution. 



306 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 

§ 102. And now having got this general principle clear- 
ly into view, let ns go on to observe how, in conformity with 
it, Evolution becomes, according to the conditions, either 
simple or compound. 

If a little sal-ammoniac, or other volatile solid, be heat- 
ed, it is disintegrated by the absorbed molecular motion, and 
rises in gas. When the gas so produced, coming in con- 
tact with a cold surface, loses its excess of molecular mo- 
tion, integration takes place — the substance assumes the 
form of crystals. This is a case of simple evolution. The 
process of concentration of matter and dissipation of motion 
does not here proceed in a gradual manner — does not pass 
through stages occupying considerable periods; but the 
molecular motion which reduced it to the gaseous state 
being dissipated, the matter passes suddenly to a completely 
solid state. The result is that along with this primary re- 
distribution there go on no appreciable secondary re-dis- 
tributions. Substantially the same thing holds with crys- 
tals deposited from solutions. Loss of that molecular mo- 
tion which, down to a certain point, keeps the molecules 
from uniting, and sudden solidification when the loss goes 
below that point, occur here as before; and here as before, 
the absence of a period during which the molecules are 
partially free and gradually losing their freedom, is accom- 
panied by the absence of supplementary re-arrangements. 

Mark, conversely, what happens when the concentration 
is slow. A gaseous mass losing its heat, and undergoing a 
consequent decrease of bulk, is not subject only to this 
change which brings its parts nearer to their common cen- 
tre, but also to many simultaneous changes. The great 
quantity of molecular motion contained in it, giving, as we 
have seen that it must, great molecular mobility, renders 
every part sensitive to every incident force ; and, as a result, 
its parts have various motions besides that implied by their 
progressing integration. Indeed these secondary motions 
which we know as currents, are so important and conspicu- 



SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 307 

ous as quite to subordinate the primary motion. Sup- 

pose that presently, the loss of molecular motion has reached 
that point at which the gaseous state can no longer be 
maintained, and condensation follows. Under their more 
closely-united form, the parts of the aggregate display, 
to a considerable degree, the same phenomena as before. 
The molecular motion and accompanying molecular mobil- 
ity implied by the liquid state, permit easy re-arrangement ; 
and hence, along with further contraction of volume, con- 
sequent on further loss of motion, there go on rapid and 
marked changes in the relative positions of parts — local 
streams produced by slight disturbing forces. But 

now, assuming the substance to be formed of molecules that 
have not those peculiarities leading to the sudden inte- 
gration which we call crystallization, what happens as the 
molecular motion further decreases? The liquid thickens 
— its parts cease to be relatively moveable among one an- 
other with ease; and the transpositions caused by feeble 
incident forces become comparatively slow. Little by little 
the currents are stopped, but the mass still continues modi- 
fiable by stronger incident forces. Gravitation makes it 
bend or spread out when not supported on all sides; and it 
may easily be indented. As it cools, however, it continues 
to grow stifler as we say — less capable of having its parts 
changed in their relative positions. And eventually, further 
loss of heat rendering it quite hard, its parts are no longer 
appreciably re-arrangeable by any save violent actions. 

Among inorganic aggregates, then, secondary re-dis- 
tributions accompany the primary re-distribution, through- 
out the whole process of concentration, where this is gradual. 
During the gaseous and liquid stages, the secondary re-dis- 
tributions, rapid and extensive as they are, leave no traces — 
the molecular mobility being such as to negative the fixed 
arrangements of parts we call structure. On approaching 
solidity we arrive at a condition called plastic, in which re- 
distributions can still be made, though much less easily; 



308 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION, 

and in which, being changeable less easily, they have a 
certain persistence — a persistence which can, however, be- 
come decided, only where further solidification stops further 
re-distribution. 

Here we see, in the first place, what are the conditions 
under which Evolution instead of being simple becomes 
compound, while we see, in the second place, how the com- 
pounding of it can be carried far only under conditions 
more special than any hitherto contemplated; -since, on the 
one hand, a large amount of secondary re-distribution is 
possible only where there is a great quantity of contained 
motion, and, on the other hand, these re-distributions can 
have permanence only where the contained motion has be- 
come small — opposing conditions which seem to negative 
any large amount of permanent secondary re-distribution. 

§ 103. And now we are in a position to observe how 
these apparently contradictory conditions are reconciled; 
and how, by the reconciliation of them, permanent second- 
ary re-distributions immense in extent are made possible. 
We shall appreciate the distinctive peculiarity of the aggre- 
gates classed as organic, in which Evolution becomes so high- 
ly compounded ; and shall see that this peculiarity consists in 
the combination of matter into a form embodying an enor- 
mous amount of motion at the same time that it has a great 
degree of concentration. 

Eor notwithstanding its semi-solid consistence, organic 
matter contains molecular motion locked up in each of the 
ways above contemplated separately. Let us note its several 
constitutional traits. Three out of its four chief 

components are gaseous ; and in their uncombined states the 
gases united in it have so much molecular motion that they 
are incondensible. Hence as the characters of elements, 
though disguised, cannot be absolutely lost in combinations, 
it is to be inferred that the protein-molecule concentrates a 
comparatively large amount of motion in a small space. 



SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 309 

And since many equivalents of these gaseous elements unite 
in one of these protein-molecules, there must be in it a large 
quantity of relative motion in addition to that which the 
ultimate atoms possess. Moreover, organic matter 

has the peculiarity that its molecules are aggregated into 
the colloid and not into the crystalloid arrangement; form- 
ing, as is supposed, clusters of clusters which have 
movements in relation to one another. Here, then, 
is a further mode in which molecular motion is in- 
cluded. Yet again, these compounds of which 
the essential parts of organisms are built, are nitrogenous; 
and we have lately seen it to be a peculiarity of nitrogenous 
compounds, that instead of giving out heat during their 
formation they absorb heat. To all the molecular mo- 
tion possessed by gaseous nitrogen, is added more 
motion; and the whole is concentrated in solid pro- 
tein. Organic aggregates are very generally dis- 
tinguished, too, by having much insensible motion in a 
free state — the motion we call heat. Though in many cases 
the quantity of this contained insensible motion is incon- 
siderable, in other cases a temperature greatly above that 
of the environment is constantly maintained. Once 
more, there is the still larger quantity of motion embodied 
by the water that permeates organic matter. It is this 
which, giving to the water its high molecular mobility, gives 
mobility to the organic molecules partially suspended in it ; 
and preserves that plastic condition which so greatly facili- 
tates re-distribution. 

From these several statements, no adequate idea can be 
formed of the extent to which living organic substance is 
thus distinguished from other substances having like sen- 
sible forms of aggregation. But some approximation to such 
an idea may be obtained by contrasting the bulk occupied 
by this substance, with the bulk which its constituents would 
occupy if uncombined. An accurate comparison cannot be 
made in the present state of science. What expansion 



310 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 

would occur if the constituents of the nitrogenous com- 
pounds could be divorced without the addition of motion 
from without, is too complex a question to be answered. 
But respecting the constituents of that which forms some 
four-fifths of the total weight of an ordinary animal — its 
water — a tolerably definite answer can be given. Were the 
oxygen and hydrogen of water to lose their affinities, and 
were no molecular motion supplied to them beyond that con- 
tained in water at blood-heat, they would assume a volume 
twenty times that of the water. * Whether protein under 
like conditions would expand in a greater or a less degree, 
must remain an open question; but remembering the gase- 
ous nature of three out of its four chief components, remem- 
bering the above-named peculiarity of nitrogenous com- 
pounds, remembering the high multiples and the colloidal 
form, we may conclude that the expansion would be great. 
We shall not be far wrong, therefore, in saying that the ele- 
ments of the human body if suddenly disengaged from one 
another, would occupy a score times the space they do : the 
movements of their atoms would compel this wide diffusion. 
Thus the esential characteristic of living organic matter, 
is that it unites this large quantity of contained motion with 
a degree of cohesion that permits temporary fixity of ar- 
rangement. 

§ 104. Further proofs that the secondary re-distribu- 
tions which make Evolution compound, depend for their 
possibility on the reconciliation of these conflicting condi- 
tions, are yielded by comparisons of organic aggregates 
with one another. Besides seeing that organic aggregates 
differ from other aggregates, alike in the quantity of motion 
they contain and the amount of re-arrangement of parts that 
accompanies their progressive integration ; we shall see that 
among organic aggregates themselves, differences in the 

* I am indebted for this result to Dr. Frankland, who has been good enough 
to have the calculation made for me. 



SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 311 

quantities of contained motion are accompanied by differ- 
ences in the amounts of re-distribution. 

The contrasts among organisms in chemical composition 
yield us the first illustration. Animals are distinguished 
from plants by their far greater amounts of structure, as 
well as by the far greater rapidity with which changes of 
structure go on in them; and in comparison with plants, 
animals are at the same time conspicuous for containing im- 
mensely larger portions of those highly-compounded nitro- 
genous molecules in which so much motion is locked up. 
So, too, is it with the contrasts between the different parts of 
each animal. Though certain nitrogenous parts, as carti- 
lage, are inert, yet the parts in which the secondary re-dis- 
tributions have gone on, and are ever going on, most active- 
ly, are those in which the most highly-compounded mole- 
cules predominate ; and parts which, like the deposits of fat, 
consist of relatively-simple molecules, are seats of but little 
structure and but little change. 

We find clear proof, too, that the continuance of the 
secondary re-distributions by which organic aggregates are 
so remarkably distinguished, depends on the presence of 
that motion contained in the water diffused through them; 
and that, other things equal, there is a direct relation be- 
tween the amount of re-distribution and the amount of 
contained water. The evidences may be put in three 
groups. There is the familiar fact that a plant 

has its formative changes arrested by cutting off the supply 
of water: the primary re-distribution continues — it withers 
and shrinks or becomes more integrated — but the secondary 
re-distributions cease. There is the less familiar, but no 
less certain, fact, that the like result occurs in animals — oc- 
curs, indeed, as might be expected, after a relatively smaller 
diminution of water. Certain of the lower animals furnish 
additional proofs. The Rotifera may be rendered apparent- 
ly lifeless by desiccation, and will yet revive if wetted. 
"When the African rivers which it inhabits are dried up, the 



312 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 

Lepidosiren remains torpid in the hardened mud, until the 
return of the rainy season brings water. Humboldt states 
that during the summer drought, the alligators of the Pam- 
pas lie buried in a state of suspended animation beneath the 
parched surface, and struggle up out of the earth as soon as 
it becomes humid. The history of each organism 

teaches us the same thing. The young plant, just putting 
its head above the soil, is far more succulent than the adult 
plant; and the amount of transformation going on in it is 
relatively much greater. In that portion of an egg which 
displays the formative processes during the early stages of 
incubation, the changes of arrangement are more rapid than 
those of which an equal portion of the body of a hatched 
chick undergoes. As may be inferred from their respective 
powers to acquire habits and aptitudes, the structural modifi- 
ability of a child is greater than that of an adult man; and 
the structural modifiability of an adult man is greater than 
that of an old man : contrasts which are accompanied by cor- 
responding contrasts in the densities of the tissues ; since the 
ratio of water to solid matter diminishes with advancing 
age. And then we have this relation repeated in 

the contrasts between parts of the same organism. In a 
tree, rapid structural changes go on at the ends of shoots, 
where the ratio of water to solid matter is very great; while 
the changes are very slow in the dense and almost dry sub- 
stance of the trunk. Similarly in animals, we have the con- 
trast between the high rate of change going on in a soft 
tissue like the brain, and the low rate of change going on 
in dry non-vascular tissues, such as those which form hairs, 
nails, horns, &c. 

Other groups of facts prove, in an equally unmistake- 
able way, that the quantity of secondary re-distribution in 
an organism varies; cater 'is paribus, according to the con- 
tained quantity of the motion we call heat. The contrasts 
between different organisms, and different states of the 
same organism, unite in showing this. Speaking 



SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 313 

generally, the amounts of structure and rates of structural 
change, are smaller throughout the vegetal kingdom than 
throughout the animal kingdom; and, speaking generally, 
the heat of plants is less than the heat of animals. A com- 
parison of the several divisions of the animal kingdom with 
one another, discloses among them parallel relations. Re- 
garded as a whole, vertebrate animals are higher in tempera- 
ture than invertebrate ones ; and they are as a whole higher 
in organic activity and complexity. -Between subdivisions 
of the vertebrata themselves, like differences in the state of 
molecular vibration, accompany like differences in the de- 
gree of evolution. The least compounded of the Vertebrata 
are the fishes ; and in most cases, the heat of fishes is nearly 
the same as that of the water in which they swim: only 
some of them being decidedly warmer. Though we habit- 
ually speak of reptiles as cold-blooded; and though they 
have not much more power than fishes of maintaining a tem- 
perature above that of their medium; yet since their medium 
(which is, in the majority of cases, the air of warm climates) 
is on the average warmer than the medium inhabited by 
fishes, the temperature of the class of reptiles is higher than 
that of the class of fishes ; and we see in them a correspond- 
ingly higher complexity. The much more active molecular 
agitation in mammals and birds, is associated with a consid- 
erably greater multiformity of structure and a very far 
greater vivacity. The most instructive contrasts, 

however, are those occurring in the same organic aggregates 
at different temperatures. Plants exhibit structural changes 
that vary in rate as the temperature varies. Though light 
is the agent which effects those molecular changes causing 
vegetal growth, yet we see that in the absence of heat, such 
changes are not effected: in winter there is enough light, 
but the heat being insufficient, plant-life is suspended. 
That this is the sole cause of the suspension, is proved by 
the fact that at the same season, plants contained in hot- 
houses, where they receive even a smaller amount of light, 
22 



314 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 

go on producing leaves and flowers. We see, too, that their 
seeds, to which light is not simply needless but detrimental, 
begin to germinate only when the return of a warm season 
raises the rate of molecular agitation. In like manner the 
ova of animals, undergoing those changes by which struc- 
ture is produced in them, must be kept more or less warm: 
in the absence of a certain amount of motion among their 
molecules, the re-arrangement of parts does not go on. 
Hybernating animals also supply proof that loss of heat car- 
ried far, retards extremely the processes of transformation. 
In animals which do not hybernate, as in man, prolonged 
exposure to intense cold produces an irresistible tendency to 
sleep (which implies a lowered rate of structural and func- 
tional changes); and if the abstraction of heat continues, 
this sleep ends in death, or stoppage of these changes. 

Here, then, is an accumulation of proofs, general and 
special. Living aggregates are distinguished by the con- 
nected facts, that during integration they undergo very 
remarkable secondary changes which other aggregates do 
not undergo to any considerable extent; and that they con- 
tain (bulks being supposed equal) immensely greater quan- 
tities of motion, locked up in various ways. 

§ 105. The last chapter closed with the remark that 
while Evolution is always an integration of Matter and dis- 
sipation of Motion, it is in most cases much more. And 
this chapter opened by briefly specifying the conditions 
under which Evolution is integrative only, or remains 
simple, and the conditions under which it is something 
further than integrative, or becomes compound. In illus- 
trating this contrast between simple and compound Evolu- 
tion, and in explaining how the contrast arises, a vague 
idea of Evolution in general has been conveyed. Unavoid- 
ably, we have to some extent forestalled the full discussion 
of Evolution about to be commenced. 

There is nothing in this to regret. A preliminary con- 



SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLUTION. 315 

ception, indefinite but comprehensive, is always useful as an 
introduction to a complete conception — cannot, indeed, be 
dispensed with. A complex idea is not communicable 
directly, by giving one after another its component parts 
in their finished forms; since if no outline pre-exists in 
the mind of the recipient, these component parts will not 
be rightly combined. The intended combination can be 
made only when the recipient has discovered for himself 
how the components are to be arranged. Much labour has 
to be gone through which would have been saved had a 
general notion, however cloudy, been conveyed before the 
distinct and detailed delineation was commenced. 

That which the reader has incidentally gathered respect- 
ing the nature of Evolution from the foregoing sections, he 
may thus advantageously use as a rude sketch, enabling him 
to seize the relations among the several parts of the en- 
larged picture as they are worked out before him. He will 
constantly bear in mind that the total history of every sen- 
sible existence is included in its Evolution and Dissolution; 
which last process we leave for the present out of considera- 
tion. He will remember that whatever aspect of it we are 
for the moment considering, Evolution is always to be re- 
garded as fundamentally an integration of Matter and dis- 
sipation of Motion, which may be, and usually is, accom- 
panied incidentally by other transformations of Matter and 
Motion. And he will everywhere expect to find that the 
primary re-distribution ends in forming aggregates which 
are simple where it is rapid, but which become compound in 
proportion as its slowness allows the effects of secondary 
re-distributions to accumulate. 

§ 106. There is much difficulty in tracing out trans- 
formations so vast, so varied, and so intricate as those now 
to be entered upon. Besides having to deal with concrete 
phenomena of all orders, we have to deal with each group 
of phenomena under several aspects, no one of which can be 



316 SIMPLE AND COMPOUND EVOLVTION. 

fully understood apart from the rest and no one of which 
can be studied simultaneously with the rest. Already we 
have seen that during Evolution two great classes of changes 
are going on together; and we shall presently see that the 
second of these great classes is re-divisible. Entangled with 
one another as all these changes are, explanation of any one 
class or order involves direct or indirect reference to others 
not yet explained. We have nothing for it but to make the 
best practicable compromise. 

It will be most convenient to devote the next chapter to 
a detailed account of Evolution under its primary aspect; 
tacitly recognizing its secondary aspects only so far as the 
exposition necessitates. 

The succeeding two chapters, occupied exclusively with 
the secondary re-distributions, will make no reference to the 
primary re-distribution beyond that which is unavoidable: 
each being also limited to one particular trait of the sec- 
ondary re-distributions. 

In a further chapter will be treated a third, and still 
more distinct, character of the secondary re-distributions. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 



§ 107. Deduction has now to be verified by induction. 
Thus far the argument has been that all sensible existences 
must, in some way or other and at some time or other, reach 
their concrete shapes through processes of concentration; 
and such facts as have been named have been named merely 
to clarify the perception of this necessity. But we cannot 
be said to have arrived at that unified knowledge consti- 
tuting Philosophy, until we have seen how existences of all 
orders do exhibit a progressive integration of Matter and 
concomitant loss of Motion. Tracing, so far as we may by 
observation and inference, the objects dealt with by the 
Astronomer and the Geologist, as well as those which Biolo- 
gy, Psychology and Sociology treat of, we have to consider 
what direct proof there is that the Cosmos, in general and 
in detail, conforms to this law. 

In doing this, manifestations of the law more involved 
than those hitherto indicated, will chiefly occupy us. 
Throughout the classes of facts successively contemplated, 
our attention will be directed not so much to the truth that 
every aggregate has undergone, or is undergoing, inte- 
gration, as to the further truth that in every more or less 
separate part of every aggregate, integration lias been, 
or is, in progress. Instead of simple wholes and wholes 
of which the complexity has been ignored, we have here to 
deal with wholes as they actually exist — mostly made up 

817 



318 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

of many members combined in many ways. And in them 
we shall have to trace the transformation as displayed under 
several forms — a passage of the total mass from a more dif- 
fused to a more consolidated state; a concurrent similar 
passage in every portion of it that comes to have a distin- 
guishable individuality; and a simultaneous increase of 
combination among such individuated portions. 

§ 108. Our Sidereal System by its general form, by its 
clusters of stars of all degrees of closeness, and by its 
nebulae in all stages of condensation, gives us grounds to 
suspect that, generally and locally, concentration is going 
on. Assume that its matter has been, and still is being, 
drawn together by gravitation, and we have an explanation 
of all its leading traits of structure — from its solidified 
masses up to its collections of attenuated nocculi barely 
discernible by the most powerful telescopes, from its double 
stars up to such complex aggregates as the nubecula?. 
Without dwelling on this evidence, however, let us pass to 
the case of the Solar System. 

The belief, for which there are so many reasons, that this 
has had a nebular genesis, is the belief that it has arisen by 
the integration of matter and concomitant loss of motion. 
Evolution, under its primary aspect, is illustrated most sim- 
ply and clearly by this passage of the Solar System from 
a widely diffused incoherent state to a consolidated coherent 
state. While, according to the nebular hypothesis, 

there has been going on this gradual concentration of the 
Solar System as an aggregate, there has been a simultane- 
ous concentration of each partially-independent member. 
The substance of every planet in passing through its stages 
of nebulous ring, gaseous spheroid, liquid spheroid, and 
spheroid externally solidified, has in essentials paralleled the 
changes gone through by the general mass; and every 
satellite has done the like. Moreover, at the same 

time that the matter of the whole, as well as the matter of 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 319 

each partially-independent part, has been thus integrating, 
there has been the further integration implied by increas- 
ing combination among the parts. The satellites of each 
planet are linked with their primary into a balanced cluster ; 
while the planets and their satellites form with the Sun, a 
compound group of which the members are more strongly 
bound up with one another than were the far-spread por- 
tions of the nebulous medium out of which they arose. 

Even apart from the nebular hypothesis, the Solar Sys- 
tem furnishes evidence having a like general meaning. ISTot 
to make much of the meteoric matter perpetually being 
added to the mass of the Earth, and probably to the masses of 
other planets, as well as, in larger quantities, to the mass of 
the Sun, it will suffice to name two generally-admitted 
instances. The one is the appreciable retardation of comets 
by the ethereal medium, and the inferred retardation of 
planets — a process which, in time, must bring comets, and 
eventually planets, into the Sun. The other is the Sun's 
still-continued loss of motion in the shape of radiated heat; 
accompanying the still-continued integration of his mass. 

§ 109. To geologic evolution we pass without break 
from the evolution which, for convenience, we separate as 
astronomic. The history of the Earth, as traced out from 
the structure of its crust, carries us back to that molten state 
which the nebular hypothesis implies ; and, as before pointed 
out (§ 69), the changes classed as igneous are the accom- 
paniments of the progressing consolidation of the Earth's 
substance and accompanying loss of its contained motion. 
Both the general and the local effects may be briefly exem- 
plified. 

Leaving behind the period when the more volatile ele- 
ments now existing as solids were kept by the high tem- 
perature in a gaseous form, we may begin with the fact 
that until the Earth's surface had cooled down below 212°, 
the vast mass of water at present covering three-fifths of it, 



320 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

must have existed as vapour. This enormous volume of 
disintegrated liquid became integrated as fast as the dissi- 
pation of the Earth's contained motion allowed; leaving, at 
length, a comparatively small portion unintegrated, which 
would be far smaller but for the unceasing absorption of 
molecular motion from the Sun. In the formation 

of the Earth's crust we have a similar change similarly 
caused. The passage from a thin solid film, everywhere 
fissured and moveable on the subjacent molten matter, to a 
crust so thick and strong as to be but now and then very 
slightly dislocated by disturbing forces, illustrates the pro- 
cess. And while, in this superficial solidification, we see 
under one form how concentration accompanies loss of con- 
tained motion, we see it under another form in that diminu- 
tion of the Earth's bulk implied by superficial corrugation. 

Local or secondary integrations have advanced along 
with this general integration. A molten spheroid merely 
skinned over with solid matter, could have presented noth- 
ing beyond small patches of land and water. Differences of 
elevation great enough to form islands of considerable size, 
imply a crust of some rigidity; and only as the crust grew 
thick could the land be united into continents divided by 
oceans. So, too, with the more striking elevations. The 
collapse of a thin crust round its cooling and contracting 
contents, would throw it into low ridges: it must have 
acquired a relatively great depth and strength before ex- 
tensive mountain systems of vast elevation became pos- 
sible. In sedimentary changes, also, a like pro- 
gress is inferable. Denudation acting on the small surfaces 
exposed during early stages, would produce but small local 
deposits. The collection of detritus into strata of great 
extent, and the union of such strata into extensive " sys- 
tems," imply wide surfaces of land and water, as well 
as subsidences great, in both area and depth; whence it 
follows that integrations of this order must have grown 
more pronounced as the Earth's crust thickened. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 321 

§ 110. Already we have recognized the fact that or- 
ganic evolution is primarily the formation of an aggre- 
gate, by the continued incorporation of matter previously 
spread through a wider space. Merely reminding the 
reader that every plant grows by concentrating in itself 
elements that were before diffused as gases, and that every 
animal grows by re-concentrating these elements previously 
dispersed in surrounding plants and animals; it will be 
here proper to complete the conception by pointing out that 
the early history of a plant or animal, still more clearly than 
its later history, shows us this fundamental process. For the 
microscopic germ of each organism undergoes, for a long 
time, no other change than that implied by absorption of 
nutriment. Cells imbedded in the stroma of an ovarium, 
become ova by little else than continued growth at the 
expense of adjacent materials. And when, after fertiliza- 
tion, a more active evolution commences, its most conspicu- 
ous trait is the drawing-in, to a germinal centre, of the sub- 
stance which the ovum contains. 

Here, however, our attention must be directed mainly to 
the secondary integrations which habitually acompany the 
primary integration. We have to observe how, along with 
the formation of a larger mass of matter, there goes on a 
drawing together and consolidation of the matter into 
parts, as well as an increasingly-intimate combination of 
parts. In the mammalian embryo, the heart, at, 

first a long pulsating blood-vessel, by and by twists upon 
itself and integrates. The bile-cells constituting the rudi- 
mentary liver, do not simply become different from the wall 
of the intestine in which they at first lie; but, as they accu- 
mulate, they simultaneously diverge from it and consolidate 
into an organ. The anterior segments of the cerebro-spinal 
axis, which are at first continuous with the rest, and distin- 
guished only by their larger size, undergo a gradual union; 
and at the same time the resulting head folds into a mass 
clearlv marked off from the rest of the vertebral column. 



322 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

The like process, variously exemplified in other organs, is 
meanwhile exhibited by the body as a whole; which 
becomes integrated somewhat in the same way that 
an outspread handkerchief and its contents become in- 
tegrated when its edges are drawn in and fastened to make 
a bundle. Analogous changes go on long after 

birth, and continue even up to old age. In man, that solidi- 
fication of the bony framework which, during childhood, is 
seen in the coalescence of portions of the same bone ossified 
from different centres, is afterwards seen in the coalescence 
of bones that were originally distinct. The appendages of 
the vertebrae unite with the vertebral centres to which they 
belong — a change not completed until towards thirty. At 
the same time the epiphyses, formed separately from the 
main bodies of their respective bones, have their cartilagi- 
nous connexions turned into osseous ones — are fused to the 
masses beneath them. The component vertebrae of the 
sacrum, which remain separate till about the sixteenth year, 
then begin to unite ; and in ten or a dozen years more their 
union is complete. Still later occurs the coalescence of the 
coccygeal vertebrae; and there are some other bony unions 
which remain unfinished unless advanced age is reached. 
To which add that the increase of density and toughness, 
going on throughout the tissues in general during life, is the 
formation of a more highly integrated substance. 

The species of change thus illustrated under several 
aspects in the unfolding human body, may be traced in all 
animals. That mode of it which consists in the union of 
similar parts originally separate, has been described by 
Milne-Edwards and others, as exhibited in various of the 
Invertehrata • though it does not seem to have been in- 
cluded by them as an essential peculiarity in the process of 
organic development. "We shall, however, see clearly that 
local integration is an all-important part of this process, 
when we find it displayed not only in the successive stages 
passed through by every embryo, but also in ascending from 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 323 

the lower creatures to the higher. As manifested in either 
way, it goes on both longitudinally and transversely : under 
which different forms we niay, indeed, most conveniently 
consider it. Of longitudinal integration, the sub- 

kingdom Annulosa supplies abundant examples. Its lower 
members, such as worms and myriapods, are mostly char- 
acterized by the great number of segments composing 
them; reaching in some cases to several hundreds. But in 
the higher divisions — crustaceans, insects, and spiders — we 
find this number reduced down to twenty-two, thirteen, or 
even fewer; while, acompanying the reduction, there is a 
shortening or integration of the whole body, reaching its 
extreme in the crab and the spider. The significance of 
these contrasts, as bearing on the general doctrine of 
Evolution, will be seen when it is pointed out that they are 
parallel to those which arise during the development of 
individual annulose animals. In the lobster, the head and 
thorax form one compact box, made by the union of a num- 
ber of segments which in the embryo were separable. Simi- 
larly, the butterfly shows us segments so much more closely 
united than they were in the caterpillar, as to be, some of 
them, no longer distinguishable from one another. The 
Yertebrata again, throughout their successively higher 
classes, furnish like instances of longitudinal union. In 
most fishes, and in reptiles that have no limbs, none of the 
vertebra? coalesce. In most mammals and in birds, a varia- 
ble number of vertebrae become fused together to form the 
sacrum; and in the higher apes and in man, the caudal verte- 
bras also lose their separate individualities in a single os 
coccygis. That which we may distinguish as trans- 

verse integration, is well illustrated among the Annulosa in 
the development of the nervous system. Leaving out those 
most degraded forms which do not present distinct ganglia, 
it is to be observed that Hie lower annulose animals, in com- 
mon with the larvae of the higher, are severally character- 
ized by a double chair of ganglia running from end to end 



321 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

of the body; while in the more perfectly-formed annulose 
animals, this double chain becomes united into a single 
chain. Mr. Newport has described the course of this con- 
centration as exhibited in insects; and by Kathke it has been 
traced in crustaceans. During the early stages of the As- 
tacusfluviatilis, or common cray-fish, there is a pair of sepa- 
rate ganglia to each ring. Of the fourteen pairs belonging 
to the head and thorax, the three pairs in advance of the 
mouth consolidate into one mass to form the brain, or ce- 
phalic ganglion. Meanwhile, out of the remainder, the first 
six pairs severally unite in the median line, while the 
rest remain more or less separate. Of these six double 
ganglia thus formed, the anterior four coalesce into one 
mass; the remaining two coalesce into another mass; and 
then these two masses coalesce into one. Here we see longi- 
tudinal and transverse integration going on simultaneously; 
and in the highest crustaceans they are both carried still fur- 
ther. The Vertebrata clearly exhibit transverse integration 
in the development of the generative system. The lowest 
mammals — the Monotremata — in common with birds, to 
which they are in many respects allied, have oviducts which 
towards their lower extremities are dilated into cavities, 
severally performing in an imperfect way the function of a 
uterus. " In the Marsupialia there is a closer approximation 
of the two lateral sets of organs on the median line ; for the 
oviducts converge towards one another and meet (without 
coalescing) on the median line; so that their uterine dilata- 
tions are in contact with each other, forming a true ' double 
uterus.' ... As we ascend the series of ' placental ' mam- 
mals, we find the lateral coalescence becoming more and 
more complete. ... In many of the Rodentia the uterus 
still remains completely divided into two lateral halves; 
whilst in others these coalesce at their lower portions, form- 
ing a rudiment of the true ' body ' of the uterus in the 
human subject. This part increases at the expense of the 
lateral ' cornua ' in the higher herbivora and carnivora; but 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 325 

even in the lower quadrumana the uterus is somewhat cleft 
at its summit." * 

Under the head of organic integrations, there remain to 
be noted some which do not occur within the limits of one 
organism, and which only in an indirect way involve con- 
centration of matter and dissipation of motion. These are 
the integration by which organisms are made dependent on 
one another. We may set down two kinds of them — those 
which occur within the same species, and those which occur 
among different species. More or less of the gre- 

garious tendency is general in animals; and when it is 
marked, there is, in addition to simple aggregation, a certain 
degree of combination. Creatures that hunt in packs, or 
that have sentinels, or that are governed by leaders, form 
bodies partially united by co-operation. Among polyga- 
mous mammals and birds this mutual dependence is closer; 
and the social insects show us assemblages of individuals of 
a still more consolidated character: some of them having 
carried the consolidation so far that the individuals cannot 
exist if separated. How organisms in general are 

mutually dependent, and in that sense integrated, we shall 
see on remembering — first, that while all animals live 
directly or indirectly on plants, plants live on the carbonic 
acid excreted by animals; second, that among animals the 
flesh-eaters cannot exist without the plant-eaters; third, 
that a large proportion of plants can continue their respec- 
tive races only by the help of insects, and that in many 
cases particular plants need particular insects. Without 
detailing the more complex connexions, which Mr. Darwin 
has so beautifully illustrated, it will suffice to say that the 
Flora and Fauna in each habitat, constitute an aggregate 
so far integrated that many of its species die out if placed 
amid the plants and animals of another habitat. And it 
is to be remarked that this integration, too, increases as 
organic evolution progresses. 

* Carpenter's Prin. of Comp. Phys., p. 617. 



326 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

§ 111. The phenomena set down in the foregoing para- 
graph are introductory to others of a higher order, with 
which they ought, perhaps, in strictness, to be grouped — 
phenomena which, for want of a better word, we may term 
super-organic. Inorganic bodies present us with certain 
facts. Certain other facts, mostly of a more involved kind, 
are presented by organic bodies. There remain yet further 
facts, not presented by any organic body taken singly; but 
which result from the actions of aggregated organic bodies 
on one another and on inorganic bodies. Though phenom- 
ena of this order are, as we see, foreshadowed among in- 
ferior organisms, they become so extremely conspicuous in 
mankind as socially united, that practically we may consider 
them to commence here. 

In the social organism integrative changes are clearly 
and abundantly exemplified. Uncivilized societies display 
them when wandering families, such as we see among Bush- 
men, join into tribes of considerable numbers. A further 
progress of like nature is everywhere manifested in the sub- 
jugation of weaker tribes by stronger ones; and in the sub- 
ordination of their respective chiefs to the conquering chief. 
The combinations thus resulting, which, among aboriginal 
races, are being continually formed and continually broken 
up, become, among superior races, relatively permanent. If 
we trace the stages through which our own society, or any 
adjacent one, has passed, we see this unification from time 
to time repeated on a larger scale and gaining in stability. 
The aggregation of juniors and the children of juniors 
under elders and the children of elders; the consequent 
establishment of groups of vassals bound to their respective 
nobles; the subsequent subordination of groups of inferior 
nobles to dukes or earls; and the still later growth of the 
kingly power over dukes and earls ; are so many instances of 
increasing consolidation. This process through which petty 
tenures are aggregated in feuds, feuds into provinces, pro- 
vinces into kingdoms, and finally contiguous kingdoms into 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 327 

a single one, slowly completes itself by destroying the origi- 
nal lines of demarcation. And it may be further remarked 
of the European nations as a whole, that in the tendency to 
form alliances more or less lasting, in the restraining influ- 
ences exercised by the several governments over one an- 
other, in the system, now becoming customary, of settling 
international disputes by congresses, as well as in the break- 
ing down of commercial barriers and the increasing facilities 
of communication, we may trace the beginnings of a Euro- 
pean federation — a still larger integration than any now 
established. 

But it is not only in these external unions of groups with 
groups, and of the compound groups with one another, that 
the general law is exemplified. It is exemplified also in 
unions that take place internally, as the groups become 
more highly organized. There are two orders of these, 
which may be broadly distinguished as regulative and opera- 
tive. A civilized society is made unlike a barba- 
rous one by the establishment of regulative classes — gov- 
ernmental, administrative, military, ecclesiastical, legal, 
&c, which, while they have their several special bonds of 
union, constituting them sub-classes, are also held together 
as a general class by a certain community of privileges, 
of blood, of education, of intercourse. In some societies, 
fully developed after their particular types, this consolida- 
tion into castes, and this union among the upper castes by 
separation from the lower, eventually grow very de- 
cided: to be afterwards rendered less decided, only in 
cases of social metamorphosis caused by the industrial 
regime. The integrations that accompany the 
operative or industrial organization, later in origin, are not 
merely of this indirect kind, but they are also direct — 
they show us physical approach. We have integrations 
consequent on the simple growth of adjacent parts perform- 
ing like functions; as, for instance, the junction of ZNT a n- 
chester with its calico-weaving suburbs. We have other 



328 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

integrations that arise when, out of several places producing 
a particular commodity, one monopolizing more and more of 
the business, draws to it masters and workers, and leaves 
the other places to dwindle; as witness the growth of the 
Yorkshire cloth-districts at the expense of those in the West 
of England; or the absorption by Staffordshire of the pot- 
tery-manufacture, and the consequent decay of the estab- 
lishments that once flourished at Derby and elsewhere. 
We have those more special integrations that arise within 
the same city; whence result the concentration of publishers 
in Paternoster Eow, of corn-merchants about Mark Lane, of 
civil engineers in Great GTeorge Street, of bankers in the cen- 
tre of the city. Industrial combinations that consist, not in 
the approximation or fusion of parts, but in the establish- 
ment of common centres of connexion, are exhibited in the 
Bank clearing-house and the Railway clearing-house. 
While of yet another species are those unions which bring 
into relation, the more or less dispersed citizens who are oc- 
cupied in like ways ; as traders are brought by the Exchange, 
and as are professional men by institutes like those of Civil 
Engineers, Architects, &c. 

At first sight these seem to be the last of our instances. 
Having followed up the general law to social aggregates, 
there apparently remain no other aggregates to which it can 
apply. This however is not true. Among what we have 
above distinguished as super-organic phenomena, we shall 
find sundry groups of very remarkable and interesting 
illustrations. Though evolution of the various products of 
human activities cannot be said directly to exemplify the 
integration of matter and dissipation of motion, yet they 
exemplify it indirectly. For the progress of Language, of 
Science, and of the Arts, industrial and aesthetic, is an ob- 
jective register of subjective changes. Alterations of struc- 
ture in human beings, and concomitant alterations of struc- 
ture in aggregates of human beings, jointly produce corre- 
sponding alterations of structure in all those things which 



THE LAW OP EVOLUTION. 329 

humanity creates. As in the changed impress on the wax, 
we read a change in the seal; so in the integrations of ad- 
vancing Language, Science, and Art, we see reflected cer- 
tain integrations of advancing human structure, individual 
and social. A section must be devoted to each group. 

§ 112. Among uncivilized races, the many-syllabled 
names used for not uncommon objects, as well as the descrip- 
tive character of proper names, show us that the words used 
for the less-familiar things are formed by compounding 
the words used for the more-familiar things. This process 
of composition is sometimes found in its incipient stage — a 
stage in which the component words are temporarily united 
to signify some un-named object, and, from lack of frequent 
use, do not permanently cohere. But in the majority of 
inferior languages, the process of " agglutination," as it 
is called, has gone far enough to produce considerable sta- 
bility in the compound words: there is a manifest integra- 
tion. How small is the degree of this integration, how- 
ever, when compared with that reached in well-developed 
languages, is shown both by the great length of the com- 
pound words used for things and acts of constant occurrence, 
and by the separableness of their elements. Certain North- 
American tongues illustrate this very well. In a Ricaree 
vocabulary extending to fifty names of common objects, 
which in English are nearly all expressed by single sylla- 
bles, there is not one monosyllabic word ; and in the nearly- 
allied vocabulary of the Pawnees, the names for these same 
common objects are monosyllabic in but two instances. 
Things so familiar to these hunting tribes as dog and bow, 
are, in the Pawnee language, ashahish and teeragish ; the 
hand and the eyes are respectively ihsheeree and Iceereehoo ; 
for day the term is shalcoorooeeshairet, and for devil it is 
tsaheekshkakooraiwah / while the numerals are composed 
of from two syllables up to five, and in Ricaree up to 

seven. That the great length of these familiar 

23 



330 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

words implies a low degree of development, and that in the 
formation of higher languages out of lower there is a pro- 
gressive integration, which reduces the polysyllables to dis- 
syllables and monosyllables, is an inference confirmed by 
the history of our own language. Anglo-Saxon steorra has 
been in course of time consolidated into English star, mono, 
into moon, and nama into name. The transition through 
the intermediate semi-Saxon is clearly traceable. Sunu 
became in semi- Saxon sune, and in English son : the final e 
of sune being an evanescent form of the original u. The 
change from the Anglo-Saxon plural, formed by the dis- 
tinct syllable as, to our plural formed by the appended 
consonant s, shows us the same thing : smithas in becom- 
ing smiths, and endas in becoming ends, illustrate pro- 
gressive coalescence. So, too, does the disappearance of the 
terminal an in the infinitive mood of verbs ; as shown in the 
transition from the Anglo-Saxon cuman to the semi-Saxon 
cumme, and to the English come. Moreover the process has 
been slowly going on, even since what we distinguish as Eng- 
lish was formed. In Elizabeth's time, verbs were still very 
frequently pluralized by the addition of en — we tell waswtf 
tellen; and in some rural districts this form of speech may 
even now be heard. In like manner the terminal ed of the 
past tense, has united with the word it modifies. Burn-ed 
has in pronunciation become burnt ; and even in writing the 
terminal t has in some cases taken the place of the ed. Only 
where antique forms in general are adhered to, as in the 
church-service, is the distinctness of this inflection still 
maintained. Further, we see that the compound vowels 
have been in many cases fused into single vowels. That in 
oread the e and a were originally both sounded, is proved by 
the fact that they are still so sounded in parts where old hab- 
its linger. We, however, have contracted the pronunciation 
into bred / and we have made like changes in many other 
common words. Lastly, let it be noted that where the fre- 
quency of repetition is greatest, the process is carried fur- 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 331 

thest ; as instance the contraction of lord (originally laford) 
into lud in the mouths of Barristers ; and, still better, the 
coalescence of God he with you into Good bye. 

Besides exhibiting in this way the integrative process, 
Language equally exhibits it throughout all grammatical 
development. The lowest kinds of human speech, having 
merely nouns and verbs without inflections to them, mani- 
festly permit no such close union of the elements of a propo- 
sition as results when the relations are marked either by 
inflections or by connective words. Such speech is neces- 
sarily what we significantly call " incoherent." To a con- 
siderable extent, incoherence is seen in the Chinese lan- 
guage. "If, instead of saying I go to London, Jigs come 
from Turkey, the sun shines through the air, we said, I go 
end London, Jigs come origin Turkey, the sun shines passage 
air, we should discourse after the manner of the Chinese." 
From this " aptotic " form, there is clear evidence of a tran- 
sition, by coalescence, to a form in which the connexions of 
words are expressed by the addition to them of certain in- 
flectional words. " In Languages like the Chinese," re- 
marks Dr. Latham, " the separate words most in use to ex- 
press relation may become adjuncts or annexes." To this 
he adds the fact that " the numerous inflexional languages 
fall into two classes. In one, the inflexions have no appear- 
ance of having been separate words. In the other, their ori- 
gin as separate words is demonstrable." From which the 
inference drawn is, that the " aptotic " languages, by the 
more and more constant use of adjuncts, gave rise to the 
" agglutinate " languages, or those in which the original 
separateness of the inflexional parts can be traced; and that 
out of these, by further use, arose the " amalgamate " lan- 
guages, or those in which the original separateness of the in- 
flexional parts can no longer be traced. Strongly 
corroborative of this inference is the unquestionable fact, 
that by such a process there have grown out of the amalga- 
mate languages, the " anaptotic " languages; of which our 



332 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

own is the most perfect example — languages in which, by 
further consolidation, inflexions have almost disappeared, 
while, to express the verbal relations, certain new kinds 
of words have been developed. When we see the Anglo- 
Saxon inflexions gradually lost by contraction during the 
development of English, and, though to a less degree, the 
Latin inflexions dwindling away during the development 
of French, we cannot deny that grammatical structure is 
modified by integration; and seeing how clearly the earlier 
stages of grammatical structure are explained by it, we can 
scarcely doubt that it has been going on from the first. 

In proportion to the degree of this integration, is the 
extent to which integration of another order is carried. 
Aptotic languages are, as already pointed out, necessarily 
incoherent — the elements of a proposition cannot be com- 
pletely tied into a whole. But as fast as coalescence pro- 
duces inflected words, it becomes possible to unite them 
into sentences of which the parts are so mutually dependent 
that no considerable change can be made without destroying 
the meaning. Yet a further stage in this process may be 
noted. After the development of those grammatical forms 
which make definite statements possible, we do not at first: 
find them used to express anything beyond statements of a 
simple kind. A single subject with a single predicate, ac- 
companied by but few qualifying terms, are usually all. If 
we compare, for instance, the Hebrew scriptures with writ- 
ings of modern times, a marked difference of aggregation 
among the groups of words, is visible. In the number of sub- 
ordinate propositions which accompany the principal one ; in 
the various complements to subjects and predicates; and in 
the numerous qualifying clauses — all of them united into one 
complex whole — many sentences in modern compositions ex- 
hibit a degree of integration not to be found in ancient ones. 

§ 113. The history of Science presents facts of the same 
meaning at every step. Indeed the integration of groups 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 333 

of like entities and like relations, may be said to constitute 
the most conspicuous part of scientific progress. A glance 
at the classificatory sciences, shows us that the confused 
incoherent aggregations which the vulgar make of natural 
objects, are gradually rendered complete and compact, and 
bound up into groups within groups. While, instead of 
considering all marine creatures as fish, shell-fish, and jelly- 
fish, Zoology establishes divisions and sub-divisions under 
the heads Vertebrata,Annulosa, Mollusca, &c. ; and while, 
in place of the wide and vague assemblage popularly de- 
scribed as " creeping things," it makes the specific classes 
Annelida, Myriopoda, Insecta, Arachnida / it simultaneous- 
ly gives to these an increasing consolidation. The several 
orders and genera of which each consists, are arranged ac- 
cording to their affinities and tied together under common 
definitions; at the same time that, by extended observation 
and rigorous criticism, the previously unknown and un- 
determined forms are integrated with their respective con- 
geners. Nor is the process less clearly manifested 
in those sciences which have for their subject-matter, not 
classified objects but classified relations. Under one of its 
chief aspects, scientific advance is the advance of generaliza- 
tion; and generalizing is uniting into groups all like co- 
existences and sequences among phenomena. The colliga- 
tion of many concrete relations into a generalization of 
the lowest order, exemplifies this principle in its simplest 
form; and it is again exemplified in a more complex form 
by the colligation of these lowest generalizations into 
higher ones, and these into still higher ones. Year by year- 
are established certain connexions among orders of phe- 
nomena that appear unallied; and these connexions, multi- 
plying and strengthening, gradually bring the seemingly 
unallied orders under a common bond. When, for example, 
Humboldt quotes the saying of the Swiss — " it is going to 
rain because we hear the murmur of the torrents nearer/' — ■ 
when he remarks the relation between this and an observa- 



334 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

tion of his own, that the cataracts of the Orinoco are heard 
at a greater distance by night than by day — when he notes 
the essential parallelism existing between these facts and 
the fact that the unusual visibility of remote objects is 
also an indication of coming rain — and when he points 
out that the common cause of these variations is the smaller 
hindrance offered to the passage of both light and sound, 
by media w T hich are comparatively homogeneous, either 
in temperature or hygrometric state; he helps in bringing 
under one generalization the phenomena of light and those 
of sound. Experiment having shown that these conform 
to like laws of reflection and refraction, the conclusion 
that they are both produced by undulations gains proba- 
bility: there is an incipient integration of two great orders 
of phenomena, between which no connexion was suspected 
in times past. A still more decided integration has been of 
late taking place between the once independent sub-sci- 
ences of Electricity, Magnetism, and Light. 

The process will manifestly be carried much further. 
Such propositions as those set forth in preceding chapters, 
on " The Persistence of Force," " The Transformation and 
Equivalence of Forces,' 7 " The Direction of Motion," and 
" The Rhythm of Motion," unite within single bonds phe- 
nomena belonging to all orders of existences. And if there 
is such a thing as that which we here understand by Phi- 
losophy, there must eventually be reached a universal 
integration. 

§ 114. Nor do the industrial and eesthetic Arts fail to 
supply us with equally conclusive evidence. The progress 
from rude, small, and simple tools, to perfect, complex, and 
large machines, is a progress in integration. Among what 
are classed as the mechanical powers, the advance from the 
lever to the wheel-and-axle is an advance from a simple 
agent to an agent made up of several simple ones. On com- 
paring the wheel-and-axle, or any of the machines used in 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 335 

early times with those used now, we see that in each of our 
machines several of the primitive machines are united into 
one. A modern apparatus for spinning or weaving, for 
making stockings or lace, contains not simply a lever, an in- 
clined plane, a screw, a wheel-and-axle, joined together; but 
several of each integrated into one whole. Again, in early 
ages, when horse-power and man-power were alone em- 
ployed, the motive agent was not bound up with the tgol 
moved; but the two have now become in many cases fused 
together. The fire-box and boiler of a locomotive are com- 
bined with the machinery which the steam works. A still 
more extensive integration is exhibited in every factory. 
Here we find a large number of complicated machines, 
all connected by driving shafts with the same steam-engine 
— all united with it into one vast apparatus. 

Contrast the mural decorations of the Egyptians and 
Assyrians with modern historical paintings, and there be- 
comes manifest a great advance in unity of composition — 
in the subordination of the parts to the whole. One of 
these ancient frescoes is, in truth, made up of a number of 
pictures that have little mutual dependence. The several 
figures of which each group consists, show very imperfectly 
by their attitudes, and not at all by their expressions, the 
relations in which they stand to each other: the respective 
groups might be separated with but little loss of meaning; 
and the centre of chief interest, which should link all parts 
together, is often inconspicuous. The same trait may be 
noted in the tapestries of medieval days. Kepresenting 
perhaps a hunting scene, one of these contains men, horses, 
dogs, beasts, birds, trees, and flowers, miscellaneously dis- 
persed: the living objects being variously occupied, and 
mostly with no apparent consciousness of each other's proxi- 
mity. But in the paintings since produced, faulty as many 
of them are in this respect, there is always a more or less 
distinct co-ordination of parts — an arrangement of atti- 
tudes, expressions, lights, and colours, such as to combine 



336 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 

the picture into an organic whole; and the success with 
which unity of effect is educed from variety of components, 
is a chief test of merit. 

In music, progressive integration is displayed in still 
more numerous ways. The simple cadence embracing but 
a few notes, which in the chants of savages is monotonously 
repeated, becomes, among civilized races, a long series of 
different musical phrases combined into one whole; and so 
complete is the integration, that the melody cannot be 
broken off in the middle, nor shorn of its final note, without 
giving us a painful sense of incompleteness. When to the 
air, a bass, a tenor, and an alto are added; and when to the 
harmony of different voice-parts there is added an accom- 
paniment ; we see exemplified integrations of another order, 
which grow gradually more elaborate. And the process 
is carried a stage higher when these complex solos, con- 
certed pieces, choruses, and orchestral effects, are com- 
bined into the vast ensemble of a musical drama ; of which, 
be it remembered, the artistic perfection largely consists 
in the subordination of the particular effects to the total 
effect. 

Once more the Arts of literary delineation, narrative 
and dramatic, furnish us with parallel illustrations. The 
tales of primitive times, like those with which the story- 
tellers of the East still daily amuse their listeners, are made 
up of successive occurrences that are not only in themselves 
unnatural, but have no natural connexion: they are but so 
many separate adventures put together without necessary 
sequence. But in a good modern work of imagination, the 
events are the proper products of the characters working 
under given conditions; and cannot at will be changed in 
their order or kind, without injuring or destroying the 
general effect. Further, the characters themselves, which 
in early fictions play their respective parts without show- 
ing how their minds are modified by one another or by the 
events, are now presented to us as held together by com- 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 337 

plex moral relations, and as acting and re-acting upon one 
another's natures. 

§ 115. Evolution then, under its primary aspect, is a 
change from a less coherent form to a more coherent form, 
consequent on the dissipation of motion and integration 
of matter. This is the universal process through which 
sensible existences, individually and as a whole, pass during 
the ascending halves of their histories. This proves to be 
a character displayed equally in those earliest changes which 
the Universe at large is supposed to have undergone, and in 
those latest changes which we trace in society and the pro- 
ducts of social life. And throughout, the unification pro- 
ceeds in several ways simultaneously. 

Alike during the evolution of the Solar System, of a 
planet, of an organism, of a nation, there' is progressive 
aggregation of the entire mass. This may be shown by the 
increasing density of the matter already contained in it; or 
by the drawing into it of matter that was before separate; 
or by both. But in any case it implies a loss of relative mo- 
tion. At the same time, the parts into which the 
mass has divided, severally consolidate in like manner. We 
see this in the formation of planets and satellites which has 
gone on along with the concentration of the nebula out of 
which the Solar System originated; we sec it in the growth 
of separate organs that advances, pari passu, with the 
growth of each organism; we see it in that rise of special 
industrial centres and special masses of population, which 
is associated with the rise of each society. Always more 
or less of local integration accompanies the general inte- 
gration. And then, beyond the increased close- 
ness of juxta-position among the components of the whole, 
and among the components of each part, there is increased 
closeness of combination among the parts, producing mutual 
dependence of them. Dimly foreshadowed as this mutual 
dependence is in inorganic existences, both celestial and 



338 THE LAW OP EVOLUTION. 

terrestrial, it becomes distinct in organic and super-organic 
existences. From the lowest living forms upwards, the 
degree of development is marked by the degree in which the 
several parts constitute a co-operative assemblage. The 
advance from those creatures which live on in each part 
when cut to pieces, up to those creatures which cannot lose 
any considerable part without death, nor any inconsiderable 
part without great constitutional disturbance, is an advance 
to creatures which, while more integrated in respect to 
their solidification, are also more integrated as consisting of 
organs that live for and by each other. The like contrast 
between undeveloped and developed societies, need not be 
shown in detail: the ever-increasing co-ordination of parts, 
is conspicuous to all. And it must suffice just to indicate 
that the same thing holds true of social products : as, for in- 
stance, of Science ; which has become highly integrated not 
only in the sense that each division is made up of mutually- 
dependent propositions, but in the sense that the several 
divisions are mutually dependent — cannot carry on their re- 
spective investigations without aid from one another. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

§ 116. Changes great in their amounts and various in 
their kinds, which accompany those dealt with in the last 
chapter, have thus far been wholly ignored — or, if tacitly 
recognized, have not been avowedly recognized. Integra- 
tion of each whole has been described as taking place simul- 
taneously with integration of each of the parts into which 
the whole divides itself. But how comes each whole to di- 
vide itself into parts ? This is a transformation more remark- 
able than the passage of the whole from an incoherent to a 
coherent state; and a formula which says nothing about it 
omits more than half the phenomena to be formulated. 

This larger half of the phenomena we have now to treat. 
In this chapter we are concerned with those secondary re- 
distributions of matter and motion that go on along with 
the primary re-distribution. We saw that while in very 
incoherent aggregates, secondary re-distributions produce 
but evanescent results, in aggregates that reach and main- 
tain a certain medium state, neither very incoherent nor 
very coherent, results of a relatively persistent character 
are produced — structural modifications. And our next in- 
quiry must be — What is the universal expression for these 
structural modifications? 

Already an implied answer has been given by the title — 
Compound Evolution. Already in distinguishing as simple 
Evolution, that integration of matter and dissipation of mo- 

889 



340 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

tion which is unaccompanied by secondary re-distributions, 
it has been tacitly asserted that where secondary re-distri- 
butions occur, complexity arises. Obviously if, while there 
has gone on a transformation of the incoherent into the co- 
herent, there have gone on other transformations, the mass, 
instead of remaining uniform, must have become multiform. 
The proposition is an identical one. To say that the pri- 
mary re-distribution is accompanied by secondary re-dis- 
tributions, is to say that along with the change from a 
diffused to a concentrated state, there goes on a change from 
a homogeneous state to a heterogeneous state. The com- 
ponents of the mass while they become integrated also be- 
come differentiated.* 

This, then, is the second aspect under which we have to 
study Evolution. As, in the last chapter, we contemplated 
existences of all orders as displaying progressive integration; 
so, in this chapter, we have to contemplate them as display- 
ing progressive differentiation. 

§ 117. A growing variety of structure throughout our 
Sidereal System, is implied by the contrasts that indicate an 
aggregative process throughout it. We have nebulae that 
are diffused and irregular, and others that are spiral, annu- 
lar, spherical, &c. We have groups of stars the members 
of which are scattered, and groups concentrated in all 
degrees down to closely-packed globular clusters. We have 
these groups differing in the numbers of their members, 
from those containing several thousand stars to those con- 

* The terms here used must be understood in relative senses. Sincere 
know of no such thing as absolute diffusion or absolute concentration, the 
change can never be anything but a change from a more diffused to a less 
diffused state— from smaller coherence to greater coherence ; and, similarly, 
as no concrete existences present us with absolute simplicity — as nothing is 
perfectly uniform — as we nowhere find complete homogeneity — the transforma- 
tion is literally always towards greater complexity, or increased multiformity, 
or further heterogeneity. This qualification the reader must habitually bear 
in mind. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 341 

taining but two. Among individual stars there are great 
contrasts, real as well as apparent, of size; and from their 
unlike colours, as well as from their unlike spectra, numer- 
ous contrasts among their physical states are inferable. Be- 
yond which heterogeneities in detail there are general hete- 
rogeneities. Nebulae are abundant in some regions of the 
heavens, while in others there are only stars. Here the 
celestial spaces are almost void of objects; and there we see 
dense aggregations, nebular and stellar together. 

The matter of our Solar System during its concentra- 
tion has become more multiform. The aggregating gaseous 
spheroid, dissipating its motion, acquiring more marked un- 
likenesses of density and temperature between interior and 
exterior, and leaving behind from time to time annular por- 
tions of its mass, underwent differentiations that increased in 
number and degree, until there was evolved the existing or- 
ganized group of sun, planets, and satellites. The hetero- 
geneity of this is variously displayed. There are the im- 
mense contrast between the sun and the planets, in bulk and 
in weight; as well as the subordinate contrasts of like kind 
between one planet and another, and between the planets 
and their satellites. There is the further contrast between 
the sun and the planets in respect of temperature ; and there 
is reason to suppose that the planets and satellites differ 
from one another in their proper heats, as well as in the heats 
which they receive from the sun. Bearing in mind that they 
also differ in the inclinations of their orbits, the inclinations 
of their axes, in their specific gravities and in their physical 
constitutions, we see how decided is the complexity wrought 
in the Solar System by those secondary re-distributions that 
have accompanied the primary re-distribution. 

§ 118. Passing from this hypothetical illustration, 
which must be taken for what it is worth, without prejudice 
to the general argument, let us descend to an order of evi- 
dence less open to objection. 



342 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

It is now generally agreed among geologists that the 
Earth was once a mass of molten matter; and that its inner 
parts are still fluid and incandescent. Originally, then, it 
was comparatively homogeneous in consistence; and, be- 
cause of the circulation that takes place in heated fluids, 
must have been comparatively homogeneous in temperature. 
It must, too, have been surrounded by an atmosphere con- 
sisting partly of the elements of air and water, and partly of 
those various other elements which assume gaseous forms at 
high temperatures. That cooling by radiation which, 
though originally far more rapid than now, necessarily re- 
quired an immense time to produce decided change, must at 
length have resulted in differentiating the portion most able 
to part with its heat; namely, the surface. A further cool- 
ing, leading to deposition of all solidifiable elements con- 
tained in the atmosphere, and finally to precipitation of the 
water and separation of it from the air, must thus have 
caused a second marked differentiation ; and as the condensa- 
tion must have commenced on the coolest parts of the sur- 
face — namely, about the poles — there must so have resulted 
the first geographical distinctions. 

To these illustrations of growing heterogeneity, which, 
though deduced from the known laws of matter, may be re- 
garded as hypothetical, Geology adds an extensive series 
that have been inductively established. The Earth's struc- 
ture has been age after age further involved by the multi- 
plication of the strata which form its crust; and it has been 
age after age further involved by the increasing composi- 
tion of these strata, the more recent of which, formed 
from the detritus of the more ancient, are many of them 
rendered highly complex by the mixtures of materials they 
contain. This heterogeneity has been vastly in- 

creased by the action of the Earth's still molten nucleus 
on its envelope; whence have resulted not only a great 
variety of igneous rocks, but the tilting up of sedimentary 
strata at all angles, the formation of faults and metallic 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 343 

veins, the production of endless dislocations and irregulari- 
ties. Again, geologists teach us that the Earth's 
surface has been growing more varied in elevation — that 
the most ancient mountain systems are the smallest, and 
the Andes and Himalayas the most modern; while, in all 
probability, there have been corresponding changes in the 
bed of the ocean. As a consequence of this ceaseless mul- 
tiplication of differences, we now find that no considerable 
portion of the Earth's exposed surface, is like any other 
portion, either in contour, in geologic structure, or in 
chemical composition; and that, in most parts, the surface 
changes from mile to mile in all these characteristics. 

There has been simultaneously going on a gradual dif- 
ferentiation of climates. As fast as the Earth cooled and 
its crust solidified, inequalities of temperature arose be- 
tween those parts of its surface most exposed to the sun 
and those less exposed; and thus in time there came to 
be the marked contrasts between regions of perpetual ice 
and snow, regions where winter and summer alternately 
reign for periods varying according to the latitude, and 
regions where summer follows summer with scarcely 
an appreciable variation. Meanwhile, elevations 

and. subsidences, recurring here and there over the Earth's 
crust, tending as they have done to produce irregular dis- 
tribution of land and sea, have entailed various modifica- 
tions of climate beyond those dependent on latitude; while 
a yet further series of such modifications has been produced 
by increasing differences of height in the lands, which 
have in sundry places brought arctic, temperate, and tropi- 
cal climates to within a few miles of one another. The 
general results of these changes are, that every extensive 
region has its own meteorologic conditions, and that every 
locality in each region differs more or less from others in 
those conditions: as in its structure, its contour, its soil. 

Thus, between our existing Earth, the phenomena of 
whose varied crust neither geographers, geologists, min- 



344 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

eralogists nor meteorologists have yet enumerated, and the 
molten globe out of which it was evolved, the contrast in 
heterogeneity is sufficiently striking. 

§ 119. The clearest, most numerous, and most varied 
illustrations of the advance in multiformity that accompa- 
nies the advance in integration, are furnished by living or- 
ganic bodies. Distinguished as we found these to be by the 
great quantity of their contained motion, they exhibit in an 
extreme degree the secondary re-distributions which con- 
tained motion facilitates. The history of every plant and 
every animal, while it is a history of increasing bulk, is also 
a history of simultaneously-increasing differences among the 
parts. This transformation has several aspects. 

The chemical composition which is almost uniform 
throughout the substance of a germ, vegetal or animal, 
gradually ceases to be uniform. The several compounds, 
nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous, which were homogene- 
ously mixed, segregate by degrees, become diversely pro- 
portioned in diverse places, and produce new compounds by 
transformation or modification. In plants the al- 

buminous and amylaceous matters which form the substance 
of the embryo, give origin here to a preponderance of 
chlorophyll and there to a preponderance of cellulose. Over 
the parts that are becoming leaf-surfaces, certain of the 
materials are metamorphosed into wax. In this place starch 
passes into one of its isomeric equivalents, sugar; and in that 
place into another of its isomeric equivalents, gum. By sec- 
ondary change some of the cellulose is modified into wood; 
whiJe some of it is modified into the allied substance which, 
in large masses, we distinguish as cork. And the more nu- 
merous compounds thus gradually arising, initiate further 
unlikenesses by mingling in unlike ratios. An animal- 

ovum, the components of which are at first evenly diffused 
among one another, chemically transforms itself in like 
manner. Its protein, its fats, its salts, become dissimilarly 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 345 

proportioned in different localities; and multiplication of 
isomeric forms leads to further mixtures and combinations 
that constitute many minor distinctions of parts. Here a 
mass darkened by accumulation of hematine, presently dis- 
solves into blood. There fatty and albuminous matters 
uniting, compose nerve-tissue. At this spot the nitrogenous 
substance takes on the character of cartilage; and at that, 
calcareous salts, gathering together in the cartilage, lay the 
foundation of bone. All these chemical differentiations 
slowly and insensibly become more marked and more mul- 
tiplied. 

Simultaneously there arise contrasts of minute struc- 
ture. Distinct tissues take the place of matter that had 
previously no recognizable unlikenesses of parts; and each 
of the tissues first produced undergoes secondary modifi- 
cations, causing sub-species of tissues. The 
granular protoplasm of the vegetal germ, equally with that 
which forms the unfolding point of every shoot, gives origin 
to cells that are at first alike. Some of these, as they grow, 
flatten and unite by their edges to form the outer layer. 
Others elongate greatly, and at the same time join together 
in bundles to lay the foundation of woody-fibre. Before 
they begin to elongate, certain of these cells show a break - 
ing-up of the lining deposit, which, during elongation, be- 
comes a spiral thread, or a reticulated framework, or a 
series of rings; and by the longitudinal union of cells so 
lined, vessels are formed. Meanwhile each of these dif- 
ferentiated tissues is re-differentiated: instance that which 
constitutes the essential part of the leaf, the upper stratum 
of which is composed of chlorophyll-cells that re- 
main closely packed, while the lower stratum becomes 
spongy. Of the same general character are the 
transformations undergone by the fertilized ovum, which, 
at first a cluster of similar cells quickly reaches a stage in 
which these cells have become dissimilar. More frequently 
recurring fission of the superficial cells, a resulting smaller 
24 



346 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

size of them, and subsequent union of them into an outer 
layer, constitute the first differentiation; and the middle 
area of this layer is rendered unlike the rest by still more 
active processes of like kind. By such modifications upon 
modifications, too multitudinous to enumerate here, arise 
the classes and sub-classes of tissues which, variously in- 
volved one with another, compose organs. 

Equally conforming to the law are the changes of gen- 
eral shape and of the shapes of organs. All germs are at 
first spheres and all organs are at first buds or mere rounded 
lumps. From this primordial uniformity and simplicity, 
there takes place divergence, both of the wholes and the 
leading parts, towards multiformity of contour and towards 
complexity of contour. Cut away the compactly- 

folded young leaves that terminate every shoot, and the 
nucleus is found to be a central knob bearing lateral knobs, 
one of which may grow into either a leaf, a sepal, a petal, 
a stamen, a carpel : all these eventually-unlike parts being at 
first alike. The shoots themselves also depart from their 
primitive unity of form; and while each branch becomes 
more or less different from the rest, the whole exposed 
part of the plant becomes different from the imbedded 
part. So, too, is it with the organs of animals. 

One of the Articulata, for instance, has limbs that are 
originally indistinguishable from one another — compose a 
homogeneous series; but by continuous divergences there 
arise among them unlikenesses of size and form, such as we 
see in the crab and the lobster. Vertebrate creatures equally 
exemplify this truth. The wings and legs of a bird are of 
similar shapes when they bud-out from the sides of the 
embryo. 

Thus in every plant and animal, conspicuous second- 
ary re-distributions accompany the primary re-distribution. 
A first difference between two parts; in each of these parts 
other differences that presently become as marked as the 
first; and a like multiplication of differences in geometri- 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 347 

cal progression, until there is reached that complex combina- 
tion constituting the adult. This is the history of all living 
things whatever. Pursuing an idea which Harvey set 
afloat, it has been shown by Wolff and Yon Baer, that dur- 
ing its evolution each organism passes from a state of homo- 
geneity to a state of heterogeneity. For a generation this 
truth has been accepted by biologists.* 

§ 120. When we pass from individual forms of life to 
life in general, and ask whether the same law is seen in the 
ensemble of its manifestations — whether modern plants and 
animals have more heterogeneous structures than ancient 

* It was in 1852 that I became acquainted with Yon Baer's expression of 
this general principle. The universality of law had ever been with me a pos- 
tulate, carrying with it a correlative belief, tacit if not avowed, in unity of 
method throughout Nature. This statement that every plant and animal, 
originally homogeneous becomes gradually heterogeneous, set up a process of 
co-ordination among accumulated thoughts that were previously unorganized, 
or but partially organized. It is true that in Social Statics (Part IV., §§ 12- 
16), written before meeting with Von Baer's formula, the development of an 
individual organism and the development of the social organism, are described 
as alike consisting in advance from simplicity to complexitv, and from inde- 
pendent like parts to mutually-dependent unlike parts — a parallelism implied 
by Milne-Edwards' doctrine of " the physiological division of labour." But 
though admitting of extension to other super-organic phenomena, this state- 
ment was too special to admit of extension to inorganic phenomena. The 
great aid rendered by Von Baer's formula arose from its higher generality ; 
since, only when organic transformations had been expressed in the most 
general terms, was the way opened for seeing what they had in common with 
inorganic transformations. The conviction that this process of change gone 
through by each evolving organism, is a process gone through by all things, 
found its first coherent statement in an essay on "Progress: its Law and 
Cause;" which I published in the Westminster Review for April, 1857 — an 
essay with the first half of which this chapter coincides in substance, and 
partly in form. In that essay, however, as also in the first edition of this 
work, I fell into the error of supposing that the transformation of the homo- 
geneous into the heterogeneous constitutes Evolution ; whereas, as we have 
seen, it constitutes the secondary re-distribution accompanying the primary re- 
distribution in that Evolution which we distinguish as compound — or rather, 
as we shall presently see, it constitutes the most conspicuous part of this sec- 
ondary re-distribution. 



348 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

ones, and whether the Earth's present Flora and Fauna are 
more heterogeneous than the Flora and Fauna of the past, — 
we find the evidence so fragmentary, that every conclusion 
is open to dispute. Two-thirds of the Earth's surface being 
covered by water; a great part of the exposed land being in- 
accessible to, or untravelled by, the geologist; the greater 
part of the remainder having been scarcely more than 
glanced at ; and even the most familiar portions, as England, 
having been so imperfectly explored, that a new series of 
strata has been added within these few years, — it is mani- 
festly impossible for us to say with any certainty what crea- 
tures have, and what have not, existed at any particular 
period. Considering the perishable nature of many of the 
lower organic forms, the metamorphosis of many sedimen- 
tary strata, and the gaps that occur among the rest, we shall 
see further reason for distrusting our deductions. On the 
one hand, the repeated discovery of vertebrate remains in 
strata previously supposed to contain none, — of reptiles 
where only fish were thought to exist, — of mammals where 
it was believed there were no creatures higher than rep- 
tiles; renders it daily more manifest how small is the value 
of negative evidence. On the other hand, the worthless- 
ness of the assumption that We have discovered the earliest, 
or anything like the earliest, organic remains, is becoming 
equally clear. That the oldest known aqueous formations 
have been greatly changed by igneous action, and that still 
older ones have been totally transformed by it, is becoming 
undeniable. And the fact that sedimentary strata earlier 
than any we know, have been melted up, being admitted, it 
must also be admitted that we cannot say how far back in 
time this destruction- of sedimentary strata has been going 
on. Thus it is manifested that the title Palaeozoic, as applied 
to the earliest known fossiliferous strata, involves a petitio 
principii ; and that, for aught we know to the contrary, only 
the last few chapters of the Earth's biological history may 
have come down to us. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 349 

All inferences drawn from such scattered facts as 
we find, must thus be extremely questionable. If, 
looking at the general aspect of evidence, a progressionist 
argues that the earliest known vertebrate remains are those 
of Fishes, which are the most homogeneous of the verte- 
brata; that Reptiles, which are more heterogeneous, are 
later; and that later still, and more heterogeneous still, are 
Mammals and Birds; it may be replied that the Palaeozoic 
deposits, not being estuary deposits, are not likely to con- 
tain the remains of terrestrial vertebrata, which may never- 
theless have existed at that era. The same answer may be 
made to the argument that the vertebrate fauna of the 
Palaeozoic period, consisting so far as we know, entirely of 
Fishes, was less heterogeneous than the modern vertebrate 
fauna, which includes Reptiles, Birds and Mammals, of 
multitudinous genera; or the uniformitarian may contend 
with great show of truth, that this appearance of higher 
and more varied forms in later geologic eras, was due to 
progressive immigration — that a continent slowly upheaved 
from the ocean at a point remote from pre-existing conti- 
nents, would necessarily be peopled from them in a suc- 
cession like that which our strata display. At the 
same time the counter-arguments may be proved equally in- 
conclusive. When, to show that there cannot have been a 
continuous evolution of the more homogeneous organic 
forms into the more heterogeneous ones, the uniformitarian 
points to the breaks that occur in the succession of these 
forms; there is the sufficient answer that current geological 
changes show us why such breaks must occur, and why, by 
subsidences and elevations of large area, there must be pro- 
duced such marked breaks as those which divide the three 
great geologic epochs. Or again, if the opponent of the de- 
velopment hypothesis cites the facts set forth by Professor 
Huxley in his lecture on " Persistent Types " — if he points 
out that " of some two hundred known order- of plants, not 
one is exclusively fossil," while " among animals, there is 



350 THE LAW 0F EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

not a single totally extinct class; and of the orders, at the 
ontside not more than seven per cent, are unrepresented in 
the existing creation " — if he nrges that among these some 
have continued from the Silurian epoch to our own day with 
scarcely any change — and if he infers that there is evidently 
a much greater average resemblance between the living 
forms of the past and those of the present, than con- 
sists with this hypothesis; there is still a satisfactory 
reply, on which in fact Prof. Huxley insists; namely, that 
we have evidence of a " pre-geologic era " of unknown du- 
ration. And indeed, when it is remembered, that the enor- 
mous subsidences of the Silurian period show the Earth's 
crust to have been approximately as thick then as it is now 
— when it is concluded that the time taken to form so thick 
a crust, must have been immense as compared with the time 
which has since elapsed — when it is assumed, as it must be, 
that during this comparatively immense time the geologic 
and biologic changes went on at their usual rates; it be- 
comes manifest, not only that the palseontological records 
which we find, do not negative the theory of evolution, 
but that they are such as might rationally be looked for. 

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that though the evi- 
dence suffices neither for proof nor disproof, yet some of its 
most conspicuous facts support the belief, that the more het- 
erogeneous organisms and groups of organisms, have been 
evolved from the less heterogeneous ones. The average 
community of type between the fossils of adjacent strata, 
and still more the community that is found between the 
latest tertiary fossils and creatures now existing, is one of 
these facts. The discovery in some modern deposits of such 
forms as the Palseotherium and Anaplotherium, which, if 
we may rely on Prof. Owen, had a type of structure inter- 
mediate between some of the types now existing, is another 
of these facts. And the comparatively recent appearance 
of Man, is a third fact of this kind, which possesses still 
greater significance. Hence we may say, that though our 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 351 

knowledge of past life upon the Earth, is too scanty to justify 
us in asserting an evolution of the simple into the complex, 
either in individual forms or in the aggregate of forms; yet 
the knowledge we have, not only consists with the belief 
that there has been such an evolution, but rather supports it 
than otherwise. 

§121. Whether an advance from the homogeneous to 
the heterogeneous is or is not displayed in the biological 
history of the globe, it is clearly enough displayed in the 
progress of the latest and most heterogeneous creature — 
Man. It is alike true that, during the period in which the 
Earth has been peopled, the human organism has grown 
more heterogeneous among the civilized divisions of the spe- 
cies; and that the species, as a whole, has been made moro 
heterogeneous by the multiplication of races and the differ- 
entiation of these races from each other. In 
proof of the first of these positions, we may cite the fact that, 
in the relative development of the limbs, the civilized man 
departs more widely from the general type of the placental 
mammalia, than do the lower human races. Though often 
possessing well-developed body and arms, the Papuan has 
extremely small legs : thus reminding us of the quadrumana, 
in which there is no great contrast in size between the hind 
and fore limbs. But in the European, the greater length 
and massiveness of the legs has become very marked — the 
fore and hind limbs are relatively more heterogeneous. 
Again, the greater ratio which the cranial bones bear to the 
facial bones, illustrates the same truth. Among the verte- 
brata in general, evolution is marked by an increasing het- 
erogeneity in the vertebral column, and more especially 
in the segments constituting the skull: the higher forms 
being distinguished by the relatively larger size of the bones 
which cover the brain, and the relatively smaller size of 
those which form the jaws, <fcc. Now, this characteristic, 
which is stronger in Man than in any other, creature, is 



352 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

stronger in the European than in the savage. Moreover, 
judging from the greater extent and variety of faculty he 
exhibits, we may infer that the civilized man has also a 
more complex or heterogeneous nervous system than the un- 
civilized man ; and indeed the fact is in part visible in the in- 
creased ratio which his cerebrum bears to the subjacent 
ganglia. If further elucidation be needed, we may find it in 
every nursery. The infant European has sundry marked 
points of resemblance to the lower human races; as in the 
flatness of the alse of the nose, the depression of its bridge, 
the divergence and forward opening of the nostrils, the form 
of the lips, the absence of a frontal sinus, the width between 
the eyes, the smallness of the legs. Now, as the develop- 
mental process by which these traits are turned into those of 
the adult European, is a continuation of that change from 
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous displayed during the 
previous evolution of the embryo, which every physiologist 
will admit ; it follows that the parallel developmental process 
by which the like traits of the barbarous races have been 
turned into those of the civilized races, has also been a con- 
tinuation of the change from the homogeneous to the hetero- 
geneous. The truth of the second position- — that 
Mankind, as a whole, have become more heterogeneous — is 
so obvious as scarcely to need illustration. Every work 
on Ethnology, by its divisions and subdivisions of races, 
bears testimony to it. Even were we to admit the hypothesis 
that Mankind originated from several separate stocks, it 
would still remain true that as, from each of these stocks, 
there have sprung many now widely different tribes, which 
are proved by philological evidence to have had a common 
origin, the race as a whole is far less homogeneous than it 
once was. Add to which, that we have, in the Anglo-Ameri- 
cans, an example of a new variety arising within these few 
generations; and that, if we may trust to the descriptions of 
observers, we are likely soon to have another such example 
in Australia. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 353 

§ 122. On passing from Humanity under its individual 
form, to Humanity as socially embodied, we find the general 
law still more variously exemplified. The change from the 
homogeneous to the heterogeneous, is displayed equally in 
the progress of civilization as a whole, and in the progress of 
every tribe or nation; and is still going on with increasing- 
rapidity. 

As we see in existing barbarous tribes, society in its first 
and lowest forms is a homogeneous aggregation of individu- 
als having like powers and like functions : the only marked 
difference of function being that which accompanies differ- 
ence of sex. Every man is warrior, hunter, fisherman, tool- 
maker, builder; every woman performs the same drudger- 
ies; every family is self-sufficing, and, save for purposes of 
aggression and defence, might as well live apart from the 
rest. Very early, however, in the process of social evolu- 
tion, we find an incipient differentiation between the gov- 
erning and the governed. Some kind of chieftainship 
seems coeval with the first advance from the state of separate 
wandering families to that of a nomadic tribe. The author- 
ity of the strongest makes itself felt among a body of sav- 
ages, as in a herd of animals, or a posse of schoolboys. At 
first, however, it is indefinite, uncertain ; is shared by others 
of scarcely inferior power; and is unaccompanied by any dif- 
ference or occupation or style of living: the first ruler kills 
his own game, makes his own weapons, builds his own hut, 
and, economically considered, does not differ from others 
of his tribe. Gradually, as the tribe progresses, the contrast 
between the governing and the governed grows more de- 
cided. Supreme power becomes hereditary in one family; 
the head of that family, ceasing to provide for his own 
wants, is served by others; and he begins to assume the sole 
office of ruling. At the same time there has been 

arising a co-ordinate species of government — that of Re- 
ligion. As all ancient records and traditions prove, the earli- 
est rulers are regarded as divine personages. The maxims 



354 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

and commands they uttered during their lives are held sa- 
cred after their deaths, and are enforced by their divinely- 
descended successors; who in their turns are promoted to 
the pantheon of the race, there to be worshipped and 
propitiated along with their predecessors; the most an- 
cient of whom is the supreme god, and the rest subordinate 
gods. For a long time these connate forms of government — • 
civil and religious — continue closely associated. For many 
generations the king continues to be the chief priest, and the 
priesthood to be members of the royal race. For many ages 
religious law continues to contain more or less of civil regu- 
lation, and civil law to possess more or less of religious sanc- 
tion; and even among the most advanced nations these two 
controlling agencies are by no means completely differen- 
tiated from each other. Having a common root 
with these, and gradually diverging from them, we find yet 
another controlling agency — that of Manners or ceremonial 
usages. All titles of honour are originally the names of the 
god-king ; afterwards of G od and the king ; still later of per- 
sons of high rank ; and finally come, some of them, to be used 
between man and man. All forms of complimentary ad- 
dress were at first the expressions of submission from prison- 
ers to their conqueror, or from subjects to their ruler, either 
human or divine — expressions that were afterwards used to 
propitiate subordinate authorities, and slowly descended into 
ordinary intercourse. All modes of salutation were once 
obeisances made before the monarch and used in worship of 
him after his death. Presently others of the god-descended 
race were similarly saluted ; and by degrees some of the salu- 
tations have become the due of all.* Thus, no sooner does 
the originally homogeneous social mass differentiate into 
the governed and the governing parts, than this last exhib- 
its an incipient differentiation into religious and secular — 
Church and State ; while at the same time there begins to be 
differentiated from both, that less definite species of gov- 

* For detailed proof of these assertions see essay on Manners and Fashion. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 355 

eminent which rules our daily intercourse — a species of 
government which, as we may see in heralds' colleges, in 
books of the peerage, in masters of ceremonies, is not with- 
out a certain embodiment of its own. Each of 
these kinds of government is itself subject to successive 
differentiations. In the course of ages, there arises, as 
among ourselves, a highly complex political organization 
of monarch, ministers, lords and commons, with their sub- 
ordinate administrative departments, courts of justice, reve- 
nue offices, &c, supplemented in the provinces by muni- 
cipal governments, county governments, parish or union 
governments — all of them more or less elaborated. By its 
side there grows up a highly complex religious organization, 
with its various grades of officials from archbishops down to 
sextons, its colleges, convocations, ecclesiastical courts, 
&c. ; to all which must be added the ever-multiplying inde- 
pendent sects, each with its general and local authorities. 
And at the same time there is developed a highly complex 
aggregation of customs, manners, and temporary fashions, 
enforced by society at large, and serving to control those 
minor transactions between man and man which are not 
regulated by civil and religious law. Moreover, it is to be 
observed that this ever-increasing heterogeneity in the gov- 
ernmental appliances of each nation, has been accompanied 
by an increasing heterogeneity in the governmental appli- 
ances of different nations: all of which are more or less un- 
like in their political systems and legislation, in their creeds 
and religious institutions, in their customs and ceremonial 
usages. 

Simultaneously there has been going on a second differ- 
entiation of a more familiar kind; that, namely, by which 
the mass of the community has been segregated into distinct 
classes and orders of workers. While the governing part has 
undergone the complex development above detailed, the 
governed part lias undergone an equally complex develop- 
ment; which has resulted in that minute division of labour 



356 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

characterizing advanced nations. It is needless to 

trace out this progress from its first stages, up through the 
caste divisions of the East and the incorporated guilds of 
Europe, to the elaborate producing and distributing organ- 
ization existing among ourselves. Political economists have 
long since indicated the evolution which, beginning with a 
tribe whose members severally perform the same actions, 
each for himself ends with a civilized community whose 
members severally perform different actions for each other ; 
and they have further pointed out the changes through 
which the solitary producer of any one commodity, is trans- 
formed into a combination of producers who, united under 
a master, take separate parts in the manufacture of such 
commodity. But there are yet other and higher 

phases of this advance from the homogeneous to the hetero- 
geneous in the industrial organization of society. Long 
after considerable progress has been made in the division 
of labour among the different classes of workers, there is 
still little or no division of labour among the widely sepa- 
rated parts of the community: the nation continues com- 
paratively homogeneous in the respect that in each district 
the same occupations are pursued. But when roads and 
other means of transit become numerous and good, the dif- 
ferent districts begin to assume different functions, and to 
become mutually dependent. The calico-manufacture lo- 
cates itself in this county, the woollen-manufacture in that ; 
silks are produced here, lace there; stockings in one place, 
shoes in another; pottery, hardware, cutlery, come to have 
their special towns; and ultimately every locality grows 
more or less distinguished from the rest by the leading occu- 
pation carried on in it. Nay, more, this subdivision of func- 
tions shows itself not only among the different parts of the 
same nation, but among different nations. That exchange 
of commodities which free-trade promises so greatly 
to increase, will ultimately have the effect of special- 
izing, in a greater or less degree, the industry of each 






THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 357 

people. So that beginning with a barbarous tribe, 

almost if not quite homogeneous in the functions of its mem- 
bers, the progress has been, and still is, towards an economic 
aggregation of the whole human race; growing ever more 
heterogeneous in respect of the separate functions assumed 
by separate nations, the separate functions assumed by the 
local sections of each nation, the separate functions assumed 
by the many kinds of makers and traders in each town, and 
the separate functions assumed by the workers united in 
producing each commodity. 

§ 123. ~Not only is the law thus clearly exemplified in 
the evolution of the social organism, but it is exemplified 
with equal clearness in the evolution of all products of 
human thought and action; whether concrete or abstract, 
real or ideal. Let us take Language as our first illustration. 

The lowest form of language is the exclamation, by 
which an entire idea is vaguely conveyed through a single 
sound; as among the lower animals. That human language 
ever consisted solely of exclamations, and so was strictly 
homogeneous in respect of its parts of speech, we have no 
evidence. But that language can be traced down to a form 
in which nouns and verbs are its only elements, is an estab- 
lished fact. In the gradual multiplication of parts of speech 
out of these primary ones — in the differentiation of verbs 
into active and passive, of nouns into abstract and concrete 
— in the rise of distinctions of mood, tense, person, of num- 
ber and case — in the formation of auxiliary verbs, of ad- 
jectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, articles — in the 
divergence of those orders, genera, species, and varieties of 
parts of speech by which civilized races express minute 
modifications of meaning — we see a change from the homo- 
geneous to the heterogeneous. And it may be remarked, in 
passing, that it is more especially in virtue of having car- 
ried this subdivision of functions to a greater extent and 
completeness, that the English language is superior to all 



358 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

others. Another aspect under which we may 

trace the development of language, is the differentiation of 
words of allied meanings. Philology early disclosed the 
truth that in all languages words may be grouped into fami- 
lies having a common ancestry. An aboriginal name, ap- 
plied indiscriminately to each of an extensive and ill-defined 
class of things or actions, presently undergoes modifications 
by which the chief divisions of the class are expressed. 
These several names springing from the primitive root, 
themselves become the parents of other names still further 
modified. And by the aid of those systematic modes which 
presently arise, of making derivatives and forming com- 
pound terms expressing still smaller distinctions, there is 
finally developed a tribe of words so heterogeneous in sound 
and meaning, that to the uninitiated it seems incredible 
they should have had a common origin. Meanwhile, from 
other roots there are being evolved other such tribes, until 
there results a language of some sixty thousand or more 
unlike words, signifying as many unlike objects, qualities 
acts. Yet another way in which language in 

general advances from the homogeneous to the heterogene- 
ous, is in the multiplication of languages. Whether, as 
Max Miiller and Bunsen think, all languages have grown 
from one stock, or whether, as some philologists say, they 
have grown from two or more stocks, it is clear that since 
large families of languages, as the Indo-European, are 
of one parentage, they have become distinct through a pro- 
cess of continuous divergence. The same diffusion over the 
Earth's surface which has led to the differentiation of the 
race, has simultaneously led to a differentiation of their 
speech: a truth which we see further illustrated in each 
nation by the peculiarities of dialect found in separate dis- 
tricts. Thus the progress of Language conforms to the 
general law, alike in the evolution of languages, in the 
evolution of families of words, and in the evolution of parts 
of speech. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 359 

On passing from spoken to written language, we come 
npon several classes of facts, all having similar implications. 
Written language is connate with Painting and Sculpture; 
and at first all three are appendages of Architecture, and 
have a direct connexion with the primary form of all Gov- 
ernment — the theocratic. Merely noting by the way the 
fact that sundry wild races, as for example the Australians 
and the tribes of South Africa, are given to depicting per- 
sonages and events upon the walls of caves, which are proba- 
bly regarded as sacred places, let us pass to the case of the 
Egyptians. Among them, as also among the Assyrians, we 
find mural paintings used to decorate the temple of the god 
and the palace of the king (which were, indeed, originally 
identical); and as such they were governmental appliances 
in the same sense that state-pageants and religious feasts 
were. Further, they were governmental appliances in vir- 
tue of representing the worship of the god, the triumphs of 
the god-king, the submission of his subjects, and the punish- 
ment of the rebellious. And yet again they were govern- 
mental, as being the products of an art reverenced by the 
people as a sacred mystery. From the habitual use 

of this pictorial representation, there naturally grew up the 
but slightly-modified practice of picture-writing — a prac- 
tice which was found still extant among the Mexicans at the 
time they were discovered. By abbreviations analogous to 
those still going on in our own written and spoken language, 
the most familiar of these pictured figures were successively 
simplified; and ultimately there grew up a system of sym- 
bols, most of which had but a distant resemblance to the 
things for which they stood. The inference that the hiero- 
glyphics of the Egyptians were thus produced, is confirmed 
by the fact that the picture-writing of the Mexicans was 
found to have given birth to a like family of ideographic 
forms; and among them, as among the Egyptians, these had 
been partially differentiated into the kuriological or imita- 
tive, and the tropical or symbolic : which were, however, 



360 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

used together in the same record. In Egypt, written lan- 
guage underwent a further differentiation; whence resulted 
the hieratic and the epistolographic or enchorial : both of 
which are derived from 'the original hieroglyphic. At the 
same time we find that for the expression of proper names, 
which could not be otherwise conveyed, phonetic symbols 
were employed ; and though it is alleged that the Egyptians 
never actually achieved complete alphabetic writing, yet 
it can scarcely be doubted that these phonetic symbols oc- 
casionally used in aid of their ideographic ones, were the 
germs out of which alphabetic writing grew. Once having 
become separate from hieroglyphics, alphabetic writing itself 
underwent numerous differentiations — multiplied alphabets 
were produced: between most of which, however, more or 
less connexion can still be traced. And in each civilized 
nation there has now grown up, for the representation of one 
set of sounds, several sets of written signs, used for distinct 
purposes. Finally, through a yet more important differen- 
tiation came printing; which, uniform in kind as it was at 
first, has since become multiform. 

§ 124. While written language was passing through its 
earlier stages of development, the mural decoration which 
formed its root was being differentiated into Painting and 
Sculpture. The gods, kings, men, and animals represented, 
were originally marked by indented outlines and coloured. 
In most cases these outlines were of such depth, and the 
object they circumscribed so far rounded and marked out in 
its leading parts, as to form a species of work intermediate 
between intaglio and bas-relief. In other cases we see an 
advance upon this: the raised spaces between the figures 
being chiselled off, and the figures themselves appropriately 
tinted, a painted bas-relief was produced. The restored 
Assyrian architecture at Sydenham, exhibits this style of art 
carried to greater perfection — the persons and things repre- 
sented, though still barbarously coloured, are carved out 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 361 

with more truth and in greater detail; and in the winged 
lions and bulls used for the angles of gateways, we may see 
a considerable advance towards a completely sculptured 
figure; which, nevertheless, is still coloured, and still forms 
part of the building. But while in Assyria the production 
of a statue proper, seems to have been little, if at all, at- 
tempted, we may trace in Egyptian art the gradual separa- 
tion of the sculptured figure from the wall. A walk through 
the collection in the British Museum will clearly show this ; 
while it will at the same time afford an opportunity of ob- 
serving the evident traces which the independent statues 
bear of their derivation from bas-relief: seeing that nearly 
all of them not only display that union of the limbs with the 
body which is the characteristic of bas-relief, but have the 
back of the statue united from head to foot with a block 
which stands in place of the original wall. Greece 

repeated the leading stages of this progress. As in Egypt 
and Assyria, these twin arts were at first united with each 
other and with their parent, Architecture ; and were the aids 
of Religion and Government. On the friezes of Greek 
temples, we see coloured bas-reliefs representing sacrifices, 
battles, processions, games — all in some sort religious. On 
the pediments we see painted sculptures more or less united 
with the tympanum, and having for subjects the triumphs of 
gods or heroes. Even when we come to statues that are defi- 
nitely separated from the buildings to which they pertain, 
we still find them coloured ; and only in the later periods of 
Greek civilization, does the differentiation of sculpture from 
painting appear to have become complete. In Chris- 

tian art we may clearly trace a parallel re-genesis. All early 
paintings and sculptures throughout Europe, were religious 
in subject — represented Christs, crucifixions, virgins, holy 
families, apostles, saints. They formed integral parts of 
church architecture, and were among the means of exciting 
worship: as in Roman Catholic countries they still are. 
Moreover, the early sculptures of Christ on the cross, of 



362 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

virgins, of saints, were coloured ; and it needs but to call to 
mind the painted madonnas and crucifixes still abundant in 
continental churches and highways, to perceive the signifi- 
cant fact that painting and sculpture continue in closest con- 
nexion with each other, where they continue in closest con- 
nexion with their parent. Even when Christian sculpture 
was pretty clearly differentiated from painting, it was still 
religious and governmental in its subjects — was used for 
tombs in churches and statues of kings; while, at the same 
time, painting, where not purely ecclesiastical, was applied 
to the decoration of palaces, and besides representing royal 
personages, was almost wholly devoted to sacred legends. 
Only in quite recent times have painting and sculpture be- 
come entirely secular arts. Only within these few centuries 
has painting been divided into historical, landscape, marine, 
architectural, genre, animal, still-life, &c, and sculpture 
grown heterogeneous in respect of the variety of real and 
ideal subjects with which it occupies itself. 

Strange as it seems then, we find it no less true, that all 
forms of written language, of painting, and of sculpture, 
have a common root in the politico-religious decorations of 
ancient temples and palaces. Little resemblance as they 
now have, the bust that stands on the console, the landscape 
that hangs against the wall, and the copy of the Times lying 
upon the table, are remotely akin; not only in nature, but 
by extraction. The brazen face of the knocker which the 
postman has just lifted, is related not only to the woodcuts 
of the Illustrated London News which he is delivering, but 
to the characters of the billet-doux which accompanies it. 
Between the painted window, the prayer-book on which its 
light falls, and the adjacent monument, there is consan- 
guinity. The effigies on our coins, the signs over shops, 
the figures that fill every ledger, the coat of arms outside the 
carriage-panel, and the placards inside the omnibus, are, in 
common with dolls, blue-books and paper-hangings, lineally 
descended from the rude sculpture-paintings in which the 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 363 

Egyptians represented the triumphs and worship of their 
god-kings. Perhaps no example can be given which more 
vividly illustrates the multiplicity and heterogeneity of the 
products that in course of time may arise by successive dif- 
ferentiations from a common stock. 

Before passing to other classes of facts, it should be ob- 
served that the evolution of the homogeneous into the het- 
erogeneous is displayed not only in the separation of Paint- 
ing and Sculpture from Architecture and from each other, 
and in the greater variety of subjects they embody; but it is 
further shown in the structure of each work. A modern 
picture or statue is of far more heterogeneous nature than an 
ancient one. An Egyptian sculpture-fresco represents all its 
figures as on one plane — that is, at the same distance from 
the eye; and so is less heterogeneous than a painting that 
represents them as at various distances from the eye. It ex- 
hibits all objects as exposed to the same degree of light; and 
so is less heterogeneous than a painting which exhibits differ- 
ent objects, and different parts of each object, as in different 
degrees of light. It uses scarcely any but the primary col- 
ours, and these in their full intensity; and so is less hetero- 
geneous than a painting which, introducing the primary col- 
ours but sparingly, employs an endless variety of intermedi- 
ate tints, each of heterogeneous composition, and dif- 
fering from the rest not only in quality but in in- 
tensity. Moreover, we see in these earliest works 
a great uniformity of conception. The same arrangement 
of figures is perpetually reproduced — the same actions, 
attitudes, faces, dresses. In Egypt the modes of representa- 
tion were so fixed that it was sacrilege to introduce a nov- 
elty; and indeed it could have been only in consequence 
of a fixed mode of representation that a system of hiero- 
glyphics became possible. The Assyrian bas-reliefs display 
parallel characters. Deities, kings, attendants, winged-fig- 
ures and animals, are severally depicted in like positions, 
holding like implements, doing like things, and with like 



364 THE LA W OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

expression or non-expression of face. If a palm-grove is in- 
troduced, all the trees are of the same height, have the same 
number of leaves, and are equidistant. When water is 
imitated, each wave is a counterpart of the rest ; and the fish, 
almost always of one kind, are evenly distributed over the 
surface. The beards of the kings, the gods, and the winged- 
figures, are everywhere similar; as are the manes of the 
lions, and equally so those of the horses. Hair is represented 
throughout by one form of curl. The king's beard is quite 
architecturally built up of compound tiers of uniform carls, 
alternating with twisted tiers placed in a transverse direc- 
tion, and arranged with perfect regularity ; and the terminal 
tufts of the bulls' tails are represented in exactly the same 
manner. Without tracing out analogous facts in 

early Christian art, in which, though less striking, they are 
still visible, the advance in heterogeneity will be sufficiently 
manifest on remembering that in the pictures of our own 
day the composition is endlessly varied ; the attitudes, faces, 
expressions, unlike; the subordinate objects different in size, 
form, position, texture ; and more or less of contrast even in 
the smallest details. Or, if we compare an Egyptian statue, 
seated bolt upright on a block, with hands on knees, fingers 
outspread and parallel, eyes looking straight forward, and 
the two sides perfectly symmetrical in every particular, with 
a statue of the advanced Greek or the modern school, which 
is asymmetrical in respect of the position of the head, the 
body, the limbs, the arrangement of the hair, dress, append- 
ages, and in its relations to neighbouring objects, we shall 
see the change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous 
clearly manifested. 

§ 125. In the co-ordinate origin and gradual differen- 
tiation of Poetry, Music, and Dancing, we have another 
series of illustrations. Rhythm in speech, rhythm in sound, 
and rhythm in motion, were in the beginning, parts of the 
same thing; and have only in process of time become sepa- 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 365 

rate things. Among various existing barbarous tribes we 
lind them still united. The dances of savages are accompa- 
nied by some kind of monotonous chant, the clapping of 
hands, the striking of rude instruments : there are measured 
movements, measured words, and measured tones; and the 
whole ceremony, usually having reference to war or sacri- 
fice, is of governmental character. In the early records of 
the historic races we similarly find these three forms of 
metrical action united in religious festivals. In the Hebrew 
writings we read that the triumphal ode composed by Moses 
on the defeat of the Egyptians, was sung to an accompani- 
ment of dancing and timbrels. The Israelites danced and 
sung " at the inauguration of the golden calf. And as it is 
generally agreed that this representation of the Deity was 
borrowed from the mysteries of Apis, it is probable that the 
dancing was copied from that of the Egyptians on those oc- 
casions." There was an annual dance in Shiloh on the 
sacred festival; and David danced before the ark. Again, 
in Greece the like relation is everywhere seen : the original 
type being there, as probably in other cases, a simultaneous 
chanting and mimetic representation of the life and ad- 
ventures of the god. The Spartan dances were accompa- 
nied by hymns and songs; and in general the Greeks had 
" no festivals or religious assemblies but what were ac- 
companied with songs and dances " — both of them being 
forms of worship used before altars. Among the Romans, 
too, there were sacred dances: the Salian and Lupercalian 
being named as of that kind. And even in Christian coun- 
tries, as at Limoges in comparatively recent times, the people 
have danced in the choir in honour of a saint. The 

incipient separation of these once united arts from each 
other and from religion, was early visible in Greece. Prob- 
ably diverging from dances partly religious, partly warlike, 
as the Corybantian, came the war-dances proper, of which 
there were various kinds; and from these resulted secular 
dances. Meanwhile Music and Poetry, though still united, 



366 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

came to have an existence separate from dancing. The abo- 
riginal Greek poems, religious in subject, were not recited 
but chanted ; and though at first the chant of the poet was ac- 
companied by the dance of the chorus, it ultimately grew 
into independence. Later still, when the poem had been 
differentiated into epic and lyric — when it became the cus- 
tom to sing the lyric and recite the epic — poetry proper was 
born. As during the same period musical instruments were 
being multiplied, we may presume that music came 
to have an existence apart from words. And both of 
them were beginning to assume other forms besides the re- 
ligious. Facts having like implications might be 
cited from the histories of later times and peoples; as the 
practices of our own early minstrels, who sang to the harp 
heroic narratives versified by themselves to music of their 
own composition: thus uniting the now separate offices of 
poet, composer, vocalist, and instrumentalist. But, without 
further illustration, the common origin and gradual differ- 
entiation of Dancing, Poetry, and Music will be sufficiently 
manifest. 

The advance from the homogeneous to the heterogene- 
ous is displayed not only in the separation of these arts from 
each other and from religion, but also in the multiplied 
differentiations which each of them afterwards undergoes. 
Not to dwell upon the numberless kinds of dancing that 
have, in course of time, come into use; and not to occupy 
space in detailing the progress of poetry, as seen in the de- 
velopment of the various forms of metre, of rhyme, and of 
general organization; let us confine our attention to music 
as a type of the group. As argued by Dr Burney, 

and as implied by the customs of still extant barbarous races, 
the first musical instruments were, without doubt, percus- 
sive — sticks, calabashes, tom-toms — and were used simply to 
mark the time of the dance; and in this constant repeti- 
tion of the same sound, we see music in its most homo- 
geneous form. The Egyptians had a lyre with three strings. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 367 

The early lyre of the Greeks had four, constituting their 
tetrachord. In course of some centuries lyres of seven and 
eight strings were employed. And, by the expiration of 
a thousand years, they had advanced to their " great sys- 
tem " of the double octave. Through all which changes 
there of course arose a greater heterogeneity of melody. Si- 
multaneously there came into use the different modes — 
Dorian, Ionian, Phrygian, iEolian, and Lydian — answering 
to our keys : and of these there were ultimately fifteen. As 
yet, however, there was but little heterogeneity in the time 
of their music. Instrumental music during this period be- 
ing merely the accompaniment of vocal music, and vocal 
music being completely subordinated to words, — the singer 
being also the poet, chanting his own compositions, and 
making the lengths of his notes agree with the feet of his 
verses; there unavoidably arose a tiresome uniformity of 
measure, which, as Dr Burney says, " no resources of mel- 
ody could disguise." Lacking the complex rhythm obtained 
by our equal bars and unequal notes, the only rhythm was 
that produced by the quantity of the syllables, and was of 
necessity comparatively monotonous. And further, it may 
be observed that the chant thus resulting, being like recita- 
tive, was much less clearly differentiated from ordinary 
speech than is our modern song. Nevertheless, considering 
the extended range of notes in use, the variety of modes, 
the occasional variations of time consequent on changes 
of metre, and the multiplication of instruments, we see 
that music had, towards the close of Greek civilization, at- 
tained to considerable heterogeneity: not indeed as com- 
pared with our music, but as compared with that which pre- 
ceded it. As yet, however, there existed nothing 
but melody: harmony was unknown. It was not until 
Christian church-music had reached some development, 
that music in parts was evolved; and then it came into exist- 
ence; through a very unobtrusive differentiation. Difficult 
as it may be to conceive, a j/riori, how the advance from 



368 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

melody to harmony could take place without a sudden leap, 
it is none the less true that it did so. The circumstance 
which prepared the way for it, was the employment of two 
choirs singing alternately the same air. Afterwards it be- 
came the practice (very possibly first suggested by a mis- 
take) for the second choir to commence before the first had 
ceased; thus producing a fugue. With the simple airs then 
in use, a partially harmonious fugue might not improbably 
thus result; and a very partially harmonious fugue satisfied 
the ears of that age, as we know from still preserved exam- 
ples. The idea having once been given, the composing of 
airs productive of f ugal harmony would naturally grow up ; 
as in some way it did grow up out of this alternate choir- 
singing. And from the fugue to concerted music of 
two, three, four, and more parts, the transition was 
easy. Without pointing out in detail the increas- 

ing complexity that resulted from introducing notes of 
various lengths, from the multiplication of keys, from the 
use of accidentals, from varieties of time, from modula- 
tions and so forth, it needs but to contrast music as it is, 
with music as it was, to see how immense is the increase of 
heterogeneity. We see this if, looking at music in its ensem- 
ble, we enumerate its many different genera and species — if 
we consider the divisions into vocal, instrumental, and 
mixed ; and their subdivisions into music for different voices 
and different instruments — if we observe the many forms of 
sacred music, from the simple hymn, the chant, the canon, 
motet, anthem, &c, up to the oratorio; and the still more 
numerous forms of secular music, from the ballad up to the 
serenata, from the instrumental solo up to the symphony. 
Again, the same truth is seen on comparing any one sample 
of aboriginal music with a sample of modern music — even 
an ordinary song for the piano; which we find to be rela- 
tively highly heterogeneous, not only in respect of the 
varieties in the pitch and in the length of the notes, the num- 
ber of different notes sounding at the same instant in com- 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 369 

pany with the voice, and the variations of strength with 
which they are sounded and sung, but in respect of the 
changes of key, the changes of time, the changes of timbre 
of the voice, and the many other modifications of expression. 
"While between the old monotonous dance-chant and a 
grand opera of our own day, with its endless orchestral com- 
plexities and vocal combinations, the contrast in hetero- 
geneity is so extreme that it seems scarcely credible that the 
one should have been the ancestor of the other. 

§ 126. "Were they needed, many further illustrations 
might be cited. Going back to the early time when the 
deeds of the god-king, chanted and mimetically represented 
in dances round his altar, were further narrated in picture 
writings on the walls of temples and palaces, and so consti- 
tuted a rude literature, we might trace the development of 
Literature through phases in which, as in the Hebrew Scrip- 
tures, it presents in one work, theology, cosmogony, history, 
biography, civil law, ethics, poetry ; through other phases in 
which, as in the Iliad, the religious, martial, historical, the 
epic, dramatic, and lyric elements are similarly commin- 
gled; down to its present heterogeneous development, in 
which its divisions and subdivisions are so numerous and 
varied as to defy complete classification. Or we might track 
the evolution of Science: beginning with the era in which 
it was not yet differentiated from Art, and was, in union 
with Art, the handmaid of Religion; passing through the 
era in which the sciences were so few and rudimentary, as to 
be simultaneously cultivated by the same philosophers; and 
ending with the era in which the genera and species are so 
numerous that few can enumerate them, and no one can 
adequately grasp even one gcnns. Or we might do the like 
with Architecture, with the Drama, with Dress. But 
doubtless the reader is already weary of illustrations; and 
my promise has been amply fulfilled. I believe it has been 
shown beyond question, that that which the German physi- 



370 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

ologists have found to be a law of organic development, is 
a law of all development. The advance from the simple to 
the complex, through a process of successive differentia- 
tions, is seen alike in the earliest changes of the Universe 
to which we can reason our way back, and in the earliest 
changes which we can inductively establish; it is seen in 
the geologic and climatic evolution of the Earth, and of 
every single organism on its surface ; it is seen in the evolu- 
tion of Humanity, whether contemplated in the civilized 
individual, or in the aggregation of races; it is seen in the 
evolution of Society, in respect alike of its political, its 
religious, and its economical organization; and it is seen in 
the evolution of all those endless concrete and abstract pro- 
ducts of human activity, which constitute the environment 
of our daily life. From the remotest past which Science can 
fathom, up to the novelties of yesterday, an essential trait 
of Evolution has been the transformation of the homogene- 
ous into the heterogeneous. 

§ 127. Hence the general formula arrived at in the last 
chapter needs supplementing. It is true that Evolution, 
under its primary aspect, is a change from a less coherent 
form to a more coherent form, consequent on the dissipation 
of motion and integration of matter; but this is by no means 
the whole truth. Along with a passage from the coherent 
to the incoherent, there goes on a passage from the uniform 
to the multiform. Such, at least, is the fact wherever Evo- 
lution is compound; which it is in the immense majority of 
cases. While there is a progressing concentration of the 
aggregate, either by the closer approach of the matter 
within its limits, or by the drawing in of further matter, or 
by both; and while the more or less distinct parts into 
which the aggregate divides and sub-divides are severally 
concentrating; these parts are also becoming unlike — un- 
like in size, or in form, or in texture, or in composition, or in 
several or all of these. The same process is exhibited by the 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 371 

whole and by its members. The entire mass is integrating, 
and simultaneously differentiating from other masses; and 
each member of it is also integrating and simultaneously dif- 
ferentiating from other members. 

Our conception, then, must unite these characters. As 
we now understand it, Evolution is definable as a change 
from an incoherent homogeneity to a coherent heteroge- 
neity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integra- 
tion of matter. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

§ 128. But now, does this generalization express the 
whole truth? Does it include everything essentially char- 
acterizing Evolution and exclude everything else? Does 
it comprehend all the phenomena of secondary re-distribu- 
tion which Compound Evolution presents, without compre- 
hending any other phenomena? A critical examination of 
the facts will show that it does neither. 

Changes from the less heterogeneous to the more hetero- 
geneous, which do not come within what we call Evolution, 
occur in every local disease. A portion of the body in which 
there arises a morbid growth, displays a new differentiation. 
Whether this morbid growth be, or be not, more hetero- 
geneous than the tissues in which it is seated, is not the 
question. The question is, whether the organism as a whole 
is, or is not, rendered more heterogeneous by the addition 
of a part unlike every pre-existing part, in form, or com- 
position, or both. And to this question there can be none 
but an affirmative answer. Again, it may be con- 

tended that the earlier stages of decompositon in a dead 
body involve increase of heterogeneity. Supposing the 
chemical changes to commence in some parts sooner than in 
other parts, as they commonly do; and to affect different 
tissues in different ways, as they must; it seems to be a 
necessary admission that the entire body, made up of unde- 

composed parts and parts decomposed in various modes and 

372 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 373 

degrees, has become more heterogeneous than it was. 
Though greater homogeneity will be the eventual result, the 
immediate result is the opposite. And yet this immediate 
result is certainly not Evolution. Other instances 

are furnished by social disorders and disasters. A rebellion, 
which, while leaving some provinces undisturbed, develops 
itself here in secret societies, there in public demonstrations, 
and elsewhere in actual conflicts, necessarily renders the 
society, as a whole, more heterogeneous. Or when a dearth 
causes commercial derangement with its entailed bank- 
ruptcies, closed factories, discharged operatives, food-riots, 
incendiarisms ; it is manifest that, as a large part of the com- 
munity retains its ordinary organization displaying the 
usual phenomena, these new phenomena must be regarded 
as adding to the complexity previously existing. But such 
changes, so far from constituting further Evolution, are 
steps towards Dissolution. 

Clearly, then, the definition arrived at in the last chapter 
is an imperfect one. The changes above instanced as com- 
ing within the formula as it now stands, are so obviously un- 
like the rest, that the inclusion of them implies some distinc- 
tion hitherto overlooked. Such further distinction we have 
now to supply. 

§ 129. At the same time that Evolution is a change 
from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, it is a change 
from the indefinite to the definite. Along with an advance 
from simplicity to complexity, there is an advance from 
confusion to order — from undetermined arrangement to de- 
termined arrangement. Development, no matter of what 
kind, exhibits not only a multiplication of unlike parts, but 
an increase in the distinctness with which these parts are 
marked off from one another. And this is the distinction 
sought. For proof, it needs only to re-consider the 

instances given above. The changes constituting disease, 
have no such definiteness, either in Locality, extent, or 



374 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

outline, as the changes constituting development. Though 
certain morbid growths are more common in some parts of 
the body than in others (as warts on the hands, cancer on 
the breasts, tubercle in the lungs), yet they are not con- 
fined to these parts; nor, when found on them, are they 
anything like so precise in their relative positions as are 
the normal parts around them. Their sizes are extremely 
variable: they bear no such constant proportions to the 
body as organs do. Their forms, too, are far less specific 
than organic forms. And they are extremely confused in 
their internal structures. That is, they are in all respects 
comparatively indefinite. The like peculiarity 

may be traced in decomposition. Their total indefiniteness 
to which a dead body is finally reduced, is a state towards 
which the putrefactive changes tend from their commence- 
ment. The advancing destruction of the organic com- 
pounds, blurs the minute structure — diminishes its dis- 
tinctness. From the portions that have undergone most 
decay, there is a gradual transition to the less decayed 
portions. And step by step the lines of organization, once 
so precise, disappear. Similarly with social changes 

of an abnormal kind. The disaffection which initiates a 
political outbreak, implies a loosening of those ties by which 
citizens are bound up into distinct classes and sub-classes. 
Agitation, growing into revolutionary meetings, fuses ranks 
that are usually separated. Acts of insubordination break 
through the ordained limits to individual conduct ; and tend 
to obliterate the lines previously existing between those in 
authority and those beneath them. At the same time, by 
the arrest of trade, artizans and others lose their occupa- 
tions; and in ceasing to be functionally distinguished, merge 
into an indefinite mass. And when at last there comes posi- 
tive insurrection, all magisterial and official powers, all class 
distinctions, and all industrial differences, cease: organized 
society lapses into an unorganized aggregation of social 
units. Similarly, in so far as famines and pestilences cause 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 375 

changes from order towards disorder, they cause changes 
from definite arrangements to indefinite arrangements. 

Thus, then, is that increase of heterogeneity which con- 
stitutes Evolution, distinguished from that increase of 
heterogeneity which does not do so. Though in disease 
and death, individual or social, the earliest modifications 
are additions to the pre-existing heterogeneity, they are 
not additions to the pre-existing definiteness. They begin 
from the very outset to destroy this definiteness; and 
gradually produce a heterogeneity that is indeterminate 
instead of determinate. As a city, already multiform in its 
variously-arranged structures of various architecture, may 
be made more multiform by an earthquake, which leaves 
part of it standing and overthrows other parts in different 
ways and degrees, but is at the same time reduced from 
orderly arrangement to disorderly arrangement; so may 
organized bodies be made for a time more multiform by 
changes which are nevertheless disorganizing changes. 
And in the one case as in another, it is the absence of 
definiteness which distinguishes the multiformity of regres- 
sion from the multiformity of progression. 

If advance from the indefinite to the definite is an 
essential characteristic of Evolution, we shall of course find 
it everywhere displayed; as in the last chapter we found 
the advance from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. 
With a view of seeing whether it is so, let us now re-con- 
sider the same several classes of facts. 

§ 130. Beginning, as before, with a hypothetical illus- 
tration, we have to note that each step in the evolution of 
the Solar System, supposing it to have originated from dif- 
fused matter, was an advance towards more definite struc- 
ture. At first irregular in shape and with indistinct margin, 
the attenuated substance, as it concentrated and began to ro- 
tate, must have assumed the form of an oblate spheroid, 
which, with every increase of density, became more specific 



376 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

in outline, and had its surface more sharply marked off from 
the surrounding void. Simultaneously, the constituent por- 
tions of nebulous matter, instead of moving independently 
towards their common centre of gravity from all points, 
and revolving round it in various planes, as they would at 
first do, must have had these planes more and more merged 
into a single plane, that became less variable as the concen- 
tration progressed — became gradually defined. 

According to the hypothesis, change from indistinct 
characters to distinct ones, was repeated in the evolution of 
planets and satellites; and may in them be traced much 
further. A gaseous spheroid is less definitely limited than 
a fluid spheroid, since it is subject to larger and more rapid 
undulations of surface, and to much greater distortions of 
general form ; and, similarly, a liquid spheroid, covered as it 
must be with waves of various magnitudes, is less definite 
than a solid spheroid. The decrease of oblateness that goes 
along with increase of integration, brings relative definite- 
ness of other elements. A planet having an axis inclined 
to the plane of its orbit, must, while its form is very 
oblate, have its plane of rotation much disturbed by the 
attraction of external bodies; whereas its approach to a 
spherical form, involving a smaller precessional motion, 
involves less marked variations in the direction of its 
axis. 

With progressing settlement of the space-relations, the 
force-relations simultaneously become more settled. The 
exact calculations of physical astronomy, show us how defi- 
nite these force-relations now are; while their original 
indefiniteness is implied in the extreme difficulty, if not 
impossibility, of subjecting the nebular hypothesis to mathe- 
matical treatment. 

§ 131. From that primitive molten state of the Earth 
inferable from geological data — a state accounted for by the 
nebular hypothesis but inexplicable on any other — the 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 377 

transition to its existing state has been through stages in 
which the characters became more determinate. Besides 
being comparatively unstable in surface and contour, a 
liquid spheroid is less specific than a solid spheroid in having 
no fixed distribution of parts. Currents of molten matter, 
though kept to certain general circuits by the conditions of 
equilibrium, cannot, in the absence of solid boundaries, be 
precise or permanent in their directions: all parts must be 
in motion with respect to other parts. But a superficial 
solidification, even though partial, is manifestly a step 
towards the establishment of definite relations of position. 
In a thin crust, however, frequently ruptured by disturbing 
forces, and moved by every tidal undulation, fixity of rela- 
tive position can be but temporary. Only as the crust 
thickens, can there arise distinct and settled geographical 
relations. Observe, too, that when, on a surface 

that has cooled to the requisite degree, there begins to pre- 
cipitate the water floating above as vapour, the deposits 
cannot maintain any definiteness either of state or place. 
Falling on a solid envelope not thick enough to preserve 
anything beyond slight variations of level, the water must 
form shallow pools over areas sufficiently cool to permit con- 
densation ; which areas must pass insensibly into others that 
are too hot for this, and must themselves from time to time 
be so raised in temperature as to drive off the water lying 
on them. With progressing refrigeration, however, — with 
a growing thickness of crust, a consequent formation of 
larger elevations and depressions, and the precipitation of 
more atmospheric water, there comes an arrangement of 
parts that is comparatively fixed in both time and space; 
and the definiteness of state and position increases, until 
there results such a distribution of continents and oceans 
as Ave now see — a distribution that is not only topographic- 
ally precise, but also in its cliff-marked coast-lines presents 
divisions of land from water more definite than could have 
existed when all the uncovered areas were low islands with 
20 



378 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

shelving beaches, over which the tide ebbed and flowed to 
great distances. 

Respecting the characteristics classed as geological, we 
may draw parallel inferences. While the Earth's crust was 
thin, mountain-chains were impossibilities: there could not 
have been long and well-defined axes of elevation, with 
distinct water-sheds and areas of drainage. Moreover, the 
denudation of small islands by small rivers, and by tidal 
streams both feeble and narrow, would produce no clearly- 
marked sedimentary strata. Confused and varying masses 
of detritus, such as we now find at the mouths of brooks, 
must have been the prevailing formations. And these could 
give place to distinct strata, only as there arose continents 
and oceans, with their great rivers, long coast-lines, and 
wide-spreading marine currents. 

How there must simultaneously have resulted more 
definite meteorological characters, need not be pointed out 
in detail. That differences of climates and seasons grew 
relatively decided as the heat of the Sun became distin- 
guishable from the proper heat of the Earth; and that the 
production of more specific conditions in each locality was 
aided by increasing permanence in the distribution of lands 
and seas; are conclusions sufficiently obvious. 

§ 132. Let us turn now to the evidence furnished by 
organic bodies. In place of deductive illustrations like the 
foregoing, we shall here find numerous illustrations which 
have been inductively established, and are therefore less 
open to criticism. The process of mammalian development, 
for example, will supply us with numerous proofs ready- 
described by embryologists. 

The first change which the ovum of a mammal under- 
goes after continued segmentation has reduced its yelk to a 
mulberry-like mass, is the appearance of a greater definite- 
ness in the peripheral cells of this mass; each of which ac- 
quires a distinct enveloping membrane. These peripheral 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 379 

cells, vaguely distinguished from the internal ones by their 
minuter sub-division as well as by their greater complete- 
ness, coalesce to form the blastoderm or germinal mem- 
brane. Presently, one portion of this membrane is ren- 
dered unlike the rest by the accumulation of cells still 
more sub-divided, which, together, form an opaque roundish 
spot. This area germinaiiva, as it is called, shades off 
gradually into the surrounding parts of the blastoderm; and 
the area pellucida, subsequently formed in the midst of it, 
is similarly without precise margin. The " primitive trace," 
which makes its appearance in the centre of the area pellu- 
cida, and is the rudiment of that vertebrate axis which is to 
be the fundamental characteristic of the mature animal,. is 
shown by its name to be at first indefinite — a mere trace. 
Beginning as a shallow groove, it becomes slowly more pro- 
nounced: its sides grow higher; their summits overlap, 
and at last unite; and so the indefinite groove passes into a 
definite tube, forming the vertebral canal. In this vertebral 
canal the leading divisions of the brain are at first discern- 
ible only as slight bulgings; while the vertebrae commence 
as indistinct modifications of the tissue bounding the canal. 
Simultaneously, the outer surface of the blastoderm has 
been differentiating from the inner surface : there has arisen 
a division into the serous and mucous layers — a division 
at the outset indistinct, and traceable only about the germi- 
nal area, but which insensibly spreads throughout nearly the 
whole germinal membrane, and becomes definite. From 
the mucous layer, the development of the alimentary canal 
proceeds as that of the vertebral canal does from the serous 
layer. Originally a smple channel along the under sur- 
face of the embryonic mass, the intestine is rendered dis- 
tinct by the bending down, on each side, of ridges which 
finally join to form a tube — the permanent absorbing sur- 
face is by degrees cut off from that temporary absorbing 
surface with which it was continuous and uniform. And in 
an analogous manner the entire embryo, which at first lies 



380 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

outspread on the yelk-sac, gradually rises up from it, 
and by the infolding of its ventral region, becomes a sepa- 
rate mass, connected with the yelk-sack only by a narrow 
duct. 

These changes through which the general structure is 
marked out with slowly- increasing precision, are paralleled 
in the evolution of each organ. The heart begins as a 
mere aggregation of cells, of which the inner liquefy to 
form blood, while the outer are transformed into the walls; 
and when thus sketched out, the heart is indefinite not only 
as being unlined by limiting membrane, but also as being 
little more than a dilatation of the central blood-vessel. 
By and by the receiving portion of the cavity becomes dis- 
tinct from the propelling portion. Afterwards there be- 
gins to grow across the ventricle, a septum, which is, how- 
ever, some time before it shuts off the two halves from each 
other; while the later-formed septum of the auricle remains 
incomplete during the whole of foetal life. Again, 

the liver commences by multiplication of certain cells in the 
wall of the intestine. The thickening produced by this 
multiplication " increases so as to form a projection upon the 
exterior of the canal ; " and at the same time that the organ 
grows and becomes distinct from the intestine, the channels 
running through it are transformed into ducts having clear- 
ly-marked walls. Similarly, certain cells of the external 
coat of the alimentary canal at its upper portion, accumulate 
into lumps or buds from which the lungs are developed; 
and these, in their general outlines and detailed structure, 
acquire distinctness step by step. 

Changes of this order continue long after birth; and, 
in the human being, are some of them not completed till 
middle life. During youth, most of the articular surfaces 
of the bones remain rough and fissured — the calcareous 
deposit ending irregularly in the surrounding cartilage. 
But between puberty and the age of thirty, these articular 
surfaces are finished off into smooth, hard, sharply-cut 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 381 

" epiphyses." Generally, indeed, we may say that increase 
of denniteness continues when there has ceased to be any 
appreciable increase of heterogeneity. And there is reason 
to think that those modifications which take place after 
maturity, bringing about old age and death, are modifica- 
tions of this nature; since they cause rigidity of structure, 
a consequent restriction of movement and of functional 
pliability, a gradual narrowing of the limits within which 
the vital processes go on, ending in an organic adjustment 
too precise — too narrow in its margin of possible variation to 
permit the requisite adaptation to changes of external con- 
ditions. 

§ 133. To prove that the Earth's Flora and Fauna, 
regarded either as wholes or in their separate species, have 
progressed in definiteness, is no more possible than it was 
to prove that they have progressed in heterogeneity: lack 
of facts being an obstacle to the one conclusion as to the 
other. If, however, we allow ourselves to reason from the 
hypothesis, now daily rendered more probable, that every 
species up to the most complex, has arisen out of the simplest 
through the accumulation of modifications upon modifica- 
tions, just as every individual arises; we shall see that there 
must have been a progress from the indeterminate to the 
determinate, both in the particular forms and in the groups 
of forms. 

We may set out with the significant fact that the lowest 
organisms (which are analogous in structure to the germs 
of all higher ones) have so little definiteness of character 
that it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide whether they 
are plants or animals. Respecting sundry of them there are 
unsettled disputes between zoologists and botanists; and it 
is proposed to group them into a separate kingdom, forming 
a common basis to the animal and vegetal kingdoms. Note 
next that among the Protozoa, extreme indeliniteness of 
shape is general. In sundry shell less Rhizopods the form is 



382 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

so irregular as to admit of no description; and it is neither 
alike in any two individuals nor in the same individual at 
successive moments. By aggregation of such creatures, are 
produced, among other indefinite bodies, the Sponges — 
bodies that are indefinite in size, in contour, in internal 
arrangement. As further showing how relatively indeter- 
minate are the simplest organisms, it may be mentioned 
that their structures vary greatly with surrounding con- 
ditions : so much so that, among the Protozoa and Pro- 
tophyta, many forms which were once classed as distinct 
species, and even as distinct genera, are found to be merely 
varieties of one species. If now we call to mind 

how precise in their attributes are the highest organisms — 
how sharply cut their outlines, how invariable their pro- 
portions, and how comparatively constant their structures 
under changed conditions; we cannot deny that greater 
definiteness is one of their characteristics. We must admit 
that if they have been evolved out of lower organisms, an 
increase of definiteness has been an accompaniment of their 
evolution. 

That, in course of time, species have become more sharp- 
ly marked off from other species, genera from genera, and 
orders from orders, is a conclusion not admitting of a more 
positive establishment than the foregoing; and must, 
indeed, stand or fall with it. If, however, species and 
genera and orders have arisen by " natural selection/ 7 then, 
as Mr. Darwin shows, there must have been a tendency to 
divergence, causing the contrasts between groups to be- 
come greater. Disappearance of intermediate forms, less 
fitted for special spheres of existence than the extreme forms 
they connected, must have made the differences between 
the extreme forms decided; and so, from indistinct and 
unstable varieties, must slowly have been produced distinct 
and stable species — an inference which is in harmony with 
what we know respecting races of men and races of domestic 
animals. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 3$3 

§ 134. The successive phases through which societies 
pass, very obviously display the progress from indetermi- 
nate arrangement to determinate arrangement. A wan- 
dering tribe of savages, being fixed neither in its locality 
nor in its internal distribution, is far less definite in the 
relative positions of its parts than a nation. In such a tribe 
the social relations are similarly confused and unsettled. 
Political authority is neither well established nor precise. 
Distinctions of rank are neither clearly marked nor im- 
passable. And save in the different occupations of men and 
women, there are no complete industrial divisions. Only 
in tribes of considerable size, which have enslaved other 
tribes, is the economical differentiation decided. 

Any one of these primitive societies, however, that 
evolves, becomes step by step more specific. Increasing in 
size, consequently ceasing to be so nomadic, and restricted 
in its range by neighbouring societies, it acquires, after pro- 
longed border warfare, a settled territorial boundary. The 
distinctions between the royal race and the people, eventual- 
ly amounts in the popular apprehension to a difference of 
nature. The warrior-class attains a perfect separation from 
classes devoted to the cultivation of the soil, or other 
occupations regarded as servile. And there arises a 
priesthood that is defined in its rank, its functions, its 
privileges. This sharpness of definition, growing 

both greater and more variously exemplified as societies 
advance to maturity, is extremest in those that have reached 
their full development or are declining. Of ancient Egypt 
we read that its social divisions were precise and its cus- 
toms rigid. Recent investigations make it more than ever 
clear, that among the Assyrians and surrounding peoples, 
not only were the laws unalterable, but even the minor 
habits, down to those of domestic routine, possessed, a 
sacredness which insured their permanence. In India at 
the present day, the unchangeable distinctions of caste, 
not less than the constancy in modes of dress, industrial 



384 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

processes, and religious observances, show us how fixed are 
the arrangements where the antiquity is great. Nor does 
China, with its long-settled political organization, its elabo- 
rate and precise conventions, and its unprogressive litera- 
ture, fail to exemplify the same truth. 

The successive phases of our own and adjacent societies, 
furnish facts somewhat different in kind but similar in 
meaning. Originally, monarchical authority was more ba- 
ronial, and baronial authority more monarchical, than after- 
wards. Between modern priests and the priests of old times, 
who while officially teachers of religion were also warriors, 
judges, architects, there is a marked difference in defi- 
niteness of function. And among the people engaged in 
productive occupations, the like contrasts would be found 
to hold: the industrial class has become more distinct 
from the military; and its various divisions from one 
another. A history of our constitution, reminding 

us how the powers of King, Lords, and Commons, have 
been gradually settled, would clearly exhibit analogous 
changes. Countless facts bearing the like construction, 
would meet us were we to trace the development of legis- 
lation; in the successive stages of which, we should find 
statutes gradually rendered more specific in their appli- 
cations to particular cases. Even now we see that each 
new law, beginning as a vague proposition, is, in the course 
of enactment, elaborated into specific clauses; and further 
that only after its interpretation has been established by 
judges' decisions in courts of justice, does it reach its final 
definiteness. From the annals of minor institu- 

tions like evidence may be gathered. Religious, charitable, 
literary, and all other societies, starting with ends and meth- 
ods roughly sketched out and easily modifiable, show us 
how, by the accumulation of rules and precedents, the pur- 
poses become more distinct and the modes of action more 
restricted; until at last decay follows a fixity which admits 
of no adaptation to new conditions. Should it be objected 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 385 

that among civilized nations there are examples of de- 
creasing definiteness, (instance the breaking down of limits 
between ranks,) the reply is, that such apparent exceptions 
are the accompaniments of a social metamorphosis — a 
change from the military or predatory type of social struc- 
ture, to the industrial or mercantile type, during which the 
old lines of organization are disappearing and the new 
ones becoming more marked. 

§ 135. All organized results of social action — all super- 
organic structures, pass through parallel phases. Being, as 
they are, objective products of subjective processes, they 
must display corresponding changes; and that they do this, 
the cases of Language, of Science, of Art, clearly prove. 

Strike out from our sentences everything but nouns and 
verbs, and there stands displayed the vagueness charac- 
terizing undeveloped tongues. When we note how each 
inflection of a verb, or addition by which the case of a noun 
is marked, serves to limit the conditions of action or of ex- 
istence, we see that these constituents of speech enable men 
to communicate their thoughts more precisely. That the 
application of an adjective to a noun or an adverb to a verb, 
narrows the class of things or changes indicated, implies 
that the additional word serves to make the proposition 
more distinct. And similarly with other parts of speech. 

The like effect results from the multiplication of words 
of each order. When the names for objects, and acts, and 
qualities, are but few, the range of each is proportionately 
wide, and its meaning therefore unspecific. The similes and 
metaphors so much nsed by aboriginal races, indirectly 
and imperfectly suggest ideas, which they cannot express 
directly and perfectly from lack of words. Or to take a 
case from ordinary life, if we compare the speech of the 
peasant, who, out of his limited vocabulary, can describe 
the contents of the bottle he carries, only as " doctor's- 
stuff " which he has got for his " sick " wife, with the 



386 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

speech of the physician, who tells those educated like him- 
self the particular composition of the medicine, and the par- 
ticular disorder for which he has prescribed it; we have 
vividly brought home to us, the precision which language 
gains by the multiplication of terms. 

Again, in the course of its evolution, each tongue ac- 
quires a further accuracy through processes which fix the 
meaning of each word. Intellectual intercourse slowly di- 
minishes laxity of expression. By and by dictionaries give 
definitions. And eventually, among the most cultivated, in- 
definiteness is not tolerated, either in the terms used or in 
their grammatical combinations. 

Once more, languages considered as wholes, become 
gradually more sharply marked off from one another, and 
from their common parent: as witness in early times the 
divergence from the same root of two languages so unlike 
as Greek and Latin, and in later times the development of 
three Latin dialects into Italian, French, and Spanish. 

§ 136. In his " History of the Inductive Sciences," Dr. 
Whewell says that the Greeks failed in physical philosophy 
because their " ideas were not distinct, and apropriate to 
the facts." I do not quote this remark for its luminous- 
ness; since it would be equally proper to ascribe the in- 
distinctness and inappropriateness of their ideas to the im- 
perfection of their physical philosophy; but I quote it 
because it serves as good evidence of the indefiniteness of 
primitive science. The same work and its fellow on " The 
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," supply other evi- 
dences equally good, because equally independent of any 
such hypothesis as is here to be established. Respecting 
mathematics, we have the fact that geometrical theorems 
grew out of empirical methods; and that these theorems, at 
first isolated, did not acquire the clearness which complete 
demonstration gives, until they were arranged by Euclid 
into a series of dependent propositions. At a later period, 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 387 

the same general truth was exemplified in the progress 
from the " method of exhaustion " and the " method of 
indivisibles" to the "method of limits;" which is the 
central idea of the infinitesimal calculus. In early 

mechanics, too, may be traced a dim perception that action 
and re-action are equal and opposite ; though, for ages after, 
this truth remained unformulated. And similarly, the prop- 
erty of inertia, though not distinctly comprehended until 
Kepler lived, was vaguely recognized long previously. 
" The conception of statical force,' 7 " was never presented 
in a distinct form till the works of Archimedes appeared; " 
and " the conception of accelerating force was confused, in 
the mind of Kepler and his contemporaries, and did not 
become clear enough for purposes of sound scientific reason- 
ing before the succeeding century." To which specific as- 
sertions may be added the general remark, that " terms 
which originally, and before the laws of motion were fully 
known, were used in a very vague and fluctuating sense, were 
afterwards limited and rendered precise." When 

we turn from abstract scientific conceptions to the con- 
crete provisions of science, of which astronomy furnishes 
numerous examples, a like contrast is visible. The times 
at which celestial phenomena will occur, have been pre- 
dicted Avith ever-increasing accuracy. Errors once amount- 
ing to days are now diminished to seconds. The corre- 
spondence between the real and supposed forms of orbits, 
has been gradually rendered more precise. Originally 
thought circular, then epicyclical, then elliptical, orbits are 
now ascertained to be curves which always deviate from 
perfect ellipses, and are ever undergoing changes. 

But the general advance of Science in definiteness, is 
best shown by the contrast between its qualitative stage, 
and its quantitative stage. At first the facts ascertained 
were, that between such and such phenomena some connex- 
ion existed — that the appearances a and h always occurred 
together or in succession; but it was known neither what was 



388 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

the nature of the relation between a and &, nor how much of 
a accompanied so much of h. The development of Science 
has in part been the reduction of these vague connexions to 
distinct ones. Most relations have been classed as me- 
chanical, chemical, thermal, electric, magnetic, &c. ; and we 
have learnt to infer the amounts of the antecedents and con- 
sequents from each other with exactness. Of 
illustrations, some furnished by physics have been given; 
and from other sciences plenty may be added. We have 
positively ascertained the constituents of numerous com- 
pounds which our ancestors could not analyze, and of a far 
greater number which they never even saw; and the com- 
bining equivalents of these elements are accurately calcu- 
lated. Physiology shows advance from qualitative to quan- 
titative prevision in the weighing and measuring of organic 
products, and of the materials consumed; as well as in 
measurement of functions by the spirometer and the sphyg- 
mograph. By Pathology it is displayed in the use of the 
statistical method of determining the sources of diseases, 
and the effects of treatment. In Botany and Zoology, the 
numerical comparisons of Floras and Faunas, leading to 
specific conclusions respecting their sources and distribu- 
tions, illustrate it. And in Sociology, questionable as are 
the conclusions usually drawn from the classified sum-totals 
of the census, from Board-of -Trade tables, and from crimi- 
nal returns, it must be admitted that these imply a progress 
towards more accurate conceptions of social phenomena. 

That an essential characteristic of advancing Science is 
increase in dehniteness, appears indeed almost a truism, 
when we remember that Science may be described as definite 
knowledge, in contradistinction to that indefinite knowledge 
possessed by the uncultured. And if, as we cannot question, 
Science has, in the course of ages, been evolved out of this 
indefinite knowledge of the uncultured; then, the gradual 
acquirement of that great definiteness which now distin- 
guishes it, must have been a leading trait in its evolution. 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 3S9 

§ 137. The Arts, industrial and aesthetic, supply illus- 
trations perhaps still more striking. Flint implements of 
the kind recently found in certain of the later geologic de- 
posits, show the extreme want of precision in men's first 
handiworks. Though a great advance on these is seen in 
the tools and weapons of existing savage tribes, yet an inex- 
actness in forms and fittings distinguishes such tools and 
weapons from those of civilized races. In a smaller degree, 
the productions of the less-advanced nations are character- 
ized by like defects. A Chinese junk, with all its con- 
tained furniture and appliances, nowhere presents a line 
that is quite straight, a uniform curve, or a true sur- 
face. Xor do the utensils and machines of our 
ancestors fail to exhibit a similar inferiority to our own. 
An antique chair, an old fireplace, a lock of the last century, 
or almost any article of household use that has been pre- 
served for a few generations, proves by contrast how greatly 
the industrial products of our time excel those of the past in 
their accuracy. Since planing machines have been invent- 
ed, it has become possible to produce absolutely straight 
lines, and surfaces so truly level as to be air-tight when ap- 
plied to each other. While in the dividing-engine of 
Troughton, in the micrometer of AVhitworth, and in micro- 
scopes that show fifty thousand divisions to the inch, we have 
an exactness as far exceeding that reached in the works of 
our great-grandfathers, as theirs exceeded that of the abo- 
riginal celt-makers. 

In the Fine Arts there has been a parallel progress. 
Prom the rudely-carved and painted idols of savages, 
through the early sculptures characterized by limbs with- 
out muscular detail, wooden-looking drapery, and faces de- 
void of individuality, up to the later studies of the Greeks 
or some of those now produced, the increased accuracy of 
representation is conspicuous. Compare the mural paint- 
ings of the Egyptians with the paintings of mediaeval 
Europe, or these with modern paintings, and the more 



390 THE LAWS OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 

precise rendering of the appearances of objects is mani- 
fest. It is the same with fiction and the drama. 
In the marvellous tales current among Eastern nations, in 
the romantic legends of feudal Europe, as well as in the 
rnystery-plays and those immediately succeeding them, we 
see great want of correspondence to the realities of life; 
alike in the predominance of supernatural events, in the 
extremely improbable coincidences, and in the vaguely- 
indicated personages. Along with social advance, there 
has been a progressive diminution of unnaturalness — an 
approach to truth of representation. And now, novels and 
plays are applauded in proportion to the fidelity with which 
they exhibit individual characters; improbabilities, like the 
impossibilities which preceded them, are disallowed; and 
there is even an incipient abandonment of those elaborate 
plots which life rarely if ever furnishes. 

§ 138. It would be easy to accumulate evidences of 
other kinds. The progress from myths and legends, ex- 
treme in their misrepresentations, to a history that has slowly 
become, and is still becoming, more accurate; the estab- 
lishment of settled systematic methods of doing things, 
instead of the indeterminate ways at first pursued — these 
might be enlarged upon in further exemplification of the 
general law. But the basis of induction is already wide 
enough. Proof that all Evolution is from the indefinite to 
the definite, we find to be not less abundant than proof that 
all Evolution is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. 

It should, however, be added that this advance in defi- 
niteness is not a primary but a secondary phenomenon — is 
a result incidental on other changes. The transformation of 
a whole that was originally diffused and uniform into a con- 
centrated combination of multiform parts, implies progres- 
sive separation both of the whole from its environment and 
of the parts from one another. While this is going on there 
must be indistinctness. Only as the whole gains density, 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 391 

does it become sharply marked off from the space or matter 
lying outside of it; and only as each separated division 
draws into its mass those peripheral portions which are at 
first imperfectly disunited from the peripheral portions of 
neighbouring divisions, can it acquire anything like a precise 
outline. That is to say, the increasing definiteness is a con- 
comitant of the increasing consolidation, general and local. 
Wlile the secondary re-distributions are ever adding to the 
heterogeneity, the primary re-distribution, while augment- 
ing the integration, is incidentally giving distinctness to the 
increasingly-unlike parts as well as to the aggregate of 
them. 

But though this universal trait of Evolution is a neces- 
sary accompaniment of the traits set forth in preceding 
chapters, it is not expressed in the words used to describe 
them. It is therefore needful further to modify our for- 
mula. The more specific idea of Evolution now reached is — ■ 
a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a 
definite coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipa- 
tion of motion and integration of matter. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 

§ 139. The conception of Evolution elaborated in the 
foregoing chapters, is still incomplete. True though it is 
it is not the whole truth. The transformations which all 
things undergo during the ascending phases of their exist- 
ence, we have contemplated under three aspects; and by 
uniting these three aspects as simultaneously presented, we 
have formed an approximate idea of the transformations. 
But there are concomitant changes about which nothing 
has yet been said; and which, though less conspicuous, are 
no less essential. 

For thus far we have attended only to the re-distribution 
of Matter, neglecting the accompanying re-distribution of 
Motion. Distinct' or tacit reference has, indeed, repeatedly 
been made to the dissipation of Motion, that goes on along 
with the concentration of Matter; and were all Evolution 
absolutely simple, the total fact would be contained in the 
proposition that as Motion dissipates Matter concentrates. 
But while we have recognized the ultimate re-distribu- 
tion of the Motion, we have passed over its proximate re-dis- 
tribution. Though something has from time to time been 
said about the escaping motion, nothing has been said 
about the motion that does not escape. In proportion as 
Evolution becomes compound — in proportion as an aggre- 
gate retains, for a considerable time, such a quantity of 
motion as permits secondary re-distributions of its com- 

393 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 393 

ponent matter, there necessarily arise secondary re-distri- 
butions of its retained motion. As fast as the parts are 
transformed, there goes on a transformation of the sensi- 
ble or insensible motion possessed by the parts. The parts 
cannot become progressively integrated, either individually 
or as a combination, without their motions, individual or 
combined, becoming more integrated. There cannot arise 
among the parts heterogeneities of size, of form, of qual- 
ity, without there also arising heterogeneities in the amounts 
and directions of their motions, or the motions of their 
molecules. And increasing definiteness of the parts implies 
increasing definiteness of their motions. In short, the 
rhythmical actions going on in each aggregate, must dif- 
ferentiate and integrate at the same time that the structure 
does so. 

The general theory of this re-distribution of the retained 
motion, must here be briefly stated. Properly to supple- 
ment our conception of Evolution under its material aspect 
by a conception of Evolution under its dynamical aspect, we 
have to recognize the source of the integrated motions that 
arise and to see how their increased multiformity and defi- 
niteness are necessitated. If Evolution is a passage 
of matter from a diffused to an aggregated state — if while 
the dispersed units are losing part of the insensible motion 
which kept them dispersed, there arise among coherent 
masses of them, any sensible motions with respect to one 
another; then this sensible motion must previously have 
existed in the form of insensible motion among the units. 
If concrete matter arises by the aggregation of diffused 
matter, then concrete motion arises by the aggregation of 
diffused motion. That which comes into existence as the 
movement of masses, implies the cessation of an equivalent 
molecular movement. While we must leave in the shape of 
hypothesis the belief that the celestial motions have thus 
originated, we may see, as a matter of fact, thai tin.- is the 
genesifl of all sensible motions on the Earth's surface. As 
27 



394 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 

before shown (§ 69), the denudation of lands and deposit 
of new strata, are effected by water in the course of its de- 
scent to the sea, or during the arrest of those undulations 
produced on it by winds; and, as before shown, the eleva- 
tion of water to the height whence it fell, is due to solar 
heat, as is also the genesis of those aerial currents which 
drift it about when evaporated and agitate its surface when 
condensed. That is to say, the molecular motion of the 
etherial medium is transformed into the motion of gases, 
thence into the motion of liquids, and thence into the mo- 
tion of solids — stages in each of which a certain amount 
of molecular motion is lost and an equivalent motion of 
masses gained. It is the same with organic movements. 
Certain rays issuing from the Sun, enable the plant to 
reduce special elements existing in gaseous combination 
around it, to a solid form — enable the plant, that is, to 
grow and carry on its functional changes. And since 
growth, equally with circulation of sap, is a mode of sen- 
sible motion, while those rays which have been expended 
in generating it consist of insensible motions, we have 
here, too, a transformation of the kind alleged. Animals, 
derived as their forces are, directly or indirectly, from 
plants, carry this transformation a step further. The au- 
tomatic movements of the viscera, together with the 
voluntary movements of the limbs and body at large, arise 
at the expense of certain molecular movements through- 
out the nervous and muscular tissues; and these originally 
arose at the expense of certain other molecular movements 
propagated by the Sun to the Earth; so that both the 
structural and functional motions which organic Evolution 
displays, are motions of aggregates generated by the arrest- 
ed motions of units. Even with the aggregates of these 
aggregates the same rule holds. Eor among associated men, 
the progress is ever towards a merging of individual ac- 
tions in the actions of corporate bodies. While, then, dur- 
ing Evolution, the escaping motion becomes, by perpetual- 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 395 

ty widening dispersion, more disintegrated, the motion that 
is for a time retained, becomes more integrated; and so, 
considered dynamically, Evolution is a decrease in the rela- 
tive movements of parts and an increase in the relative 
movements of -wholes — using the words parts and wholes 
in their most general senses. The advance is from the 
motions of simple molecules to the motions of compound 
molecules; from molecular motions to the motions of masses; 
and from the motions of smaller masses to the motions of 
larger masses. The accompanying change towards 

greater multiformity among the retained motions, takes 
place under the form of an increased variety of rhythms. 
We have already seen that all motion is rhythmical, from 
the infinitesimal vibrations of infinitesimal molecules, up 
to those vast oscillations between perihelion and aphelion 
performed by vast celestial bodies. And as the contrast 
between these extreme cases suggests, a multiplication of 
rhythms must accompany a multiplication in the degrees 
and modes of aggregation, and in the relations of the aggre- 
gated masses to incident forces. The degree or mode of 
aggregation will not, indeed, affect the rate or extent of 
rhythm where the incident force increases as the aggregate 
increases, which is the case with gravitation: here the only 
cause of variation in rhythm, is difference of relation to the 
incident forces; as we see in a pendulum, which, though 
unaffected in its movements by a change in the weight of 
the bob, alters its rate of oscillation when taken to the 
equator. But in all cases where the incident forces do not 
vary as the masses, every new order of aggregation initiates 
a new order of rhythm: witness the conclusion drawn from 
the recent researches into radiant heat and light, that the 
molecules of different gases have different rates of undula- 
tion; So that increased multiformity in the arrangement of 
matter, necessarily generates increased multiformity of 
rliytlim; both through increased variety in the Bizes and 
forms of aggregates, and through increased variety in their 



396 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 

relations to the forces which move them. That 

these motions as they become more integrated and more 
heterogeneous, must become more definite, is a proposition 
that need not detain us. In proportion as any part of an 
evolving whole segregates and consolidates, -and in so doing 
loses the relative mobility of its components, its aggregate 
motion must obviously acquire distinctness. 

Here, then, to complete our conception of Evolution, we 
have to contemplate throughout the Cosmos, these meta- 
morphoses of retained motion that accompany the meta- 
morphoses of component matter. We may do this with 
comparative brevity: the reader having now become so far 
familiar with the mode of looking at the facts, that less illus- 
tration will suffice. To save space, it will be convenient to 
deal with the several aspects of the metamorphoses at the 
same time. 

§ 140. Dispersed matter moving, as we see it in a spiral 
nebula, towards the common centre of gravity, from all 
points at all distances with all degrees of indirectness, must 
carry into the nebulous mass eventually formed, innumera- 
ble momenta contrasted in their amounts and directions. As 
the integration progresses, such parts of these momenta as 
conflict are mutually neutralized, and dissipated as heat. 
The out-standing rotatory motion, at first having unlike 
angular velocities at the periphery and at various distances 
from the centre, has its differences of angular velocity 
gradually reduced; advancing towards a final state, now 
nearly reached by the Sun, in which the angular ve- 
locity of the whole mass is the same — in which the motion 
is integrated. So, too, with each planet and satel- 

lite. Progress from the motion of the nebulous ring, inco- 
herent and admitting of much relative motion within its 
mass, to the motion of a dense spheroid, is progress to a mo- 
tion that is completely integrated. The rotation, and the 
translation through space, severally become one and indivis- 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 397 

ible. Meanwhile, there goes on that further in- 

tegration by which the motions of all the parts of the Solar 
System are rendered mutually dependent. Locally in each 
planet and its satellites, and generally in the Sun and the 
planets, we have a system of simple and compound rhythms, 
with periodic and secular variations, forming together an 
integrated set of movements. 

The matter which, in its original diffused state, had 
motions that were confused, indeterminate, or without 
sharply-marked distinctions, has, during the evolution of 
the Solar System, acquired definitely heterogeneous mo- 
tions. The periods of revolution of all the planets and satel- 
lites are unlike; as are also their times of rotation. Out of 
these definitely heterogeneous motions of a simple kind, 
arise others that are complex, but still definite; — as those 
produced by the revolutions of satellites compounded with 
the revolutions of their primaries; as those of which pre- 
cession is the result; and as those which are known as per- 
turbations. Each additional complexity of structure has 
caused additional complexity of movements ; but still, a defi- 
nite complexity, as is shown by having calculable results. 

§ 141. While the Earth's surface was molten, the cur- 
rents in the voluminous atmosphere surrounding it, mainly 
of ascending heated gases and of descending precipitated 
liquids, must have been local, numerous, indefinite, and but 
little distinguished from one another. But as fast as the 
surface cooled, and solar radiation began to cause appre- 
ciable differences of temperature between the equatorial 
and polar regions, a decided atmospheric circulation from 
poles to equator and from equator to poles, must have slowly 
established itself: the vast moving masses of air becoming, 
at last, trade-winds and other such permanent definite cur- 
rents. These integrated nmti<>ns, once com- 
paratively homogeneous, were rendered heterogeneous as 

great, islands and continents arose, to complicate them by 



398 THE LAW 0F EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 

periodic winds, caused by the varied heating of wide tracts 
of land at different seasons. Rhythmical motions of a con- 
stant and simple kind, were, by increasing multiformity of 
the Earth's surface, differentiated into an involved com- 
bination of constant and recurrent rhythmical motions, 
joined with smaller motions that are irregular. 

Parallel changes must have taken place in the motions of 
water. On a thin crust, admitting of but small elevations 
and depressions, and therefore of but small lakes and seas, 
none beyond small local circulations were possible. But 
along with the formation of continents and oceans, came the 
vast movements of water from warm latitudes to cold and 
from cold to warm — movements increasing in amount, in 
definiteness, and in variety of distribution, as the fea- 
tures of the Earth's surface became larger and more con- 
trasted. The like holds with drainage waters. 
The tricklings of insignficant streams over narrow pieces of 
land, were once the only motions of such waters; but as fast 
as wide areas came into existence, the motions of many tribu- 
taries became massed into the motions of great rivers; and 
instead of motions very much alike, there arose motions con- 
siderably varied. 

Nor can we well doubt that the movements in the 
Earth's crust itself, have presented an analogous progress. 
Small, numerous, local, and very much like one another, 
while the crust was thin, the elevations and subsidences 
must, as the crust thickened, have extended over larger 
areas, must have continued for longer eras in the same 
directions, and must have been made more unlike in differ- 
ent regions by local differences of structure in the crust. 

§ 142. In organisms the advance towards a more inte- 
grated, heterogeneous, and definite distribution of the re- 
tained motion, which accompanies the advance towards a 
more integrated, heterogeneous, and definite distribution of 
the component matter, is mainly what we understand as the 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 399 

development of functions. All active functions are either 
sensible movements, as those produced by contractile or- 
gans; or such insensible movements as those propagated 
through the nerves; or such insensible movements as those 
by which, in secreting organs, molecular re-arrangements 
are effected, and new combinations of matter produced. 
And what we have here to observe is, that during evolution, 
'functions, like structures, become more consolidated in- 
dividually, as well as more combined with one another, at 
the same time that they become more multiform and more 
distinct. 

The nutritive juices in animals of low types, move hither 
and thither through the tissues quite irregularly, as local 
strains and pressures determine: in the absence of a dis- 
tinguishable blood and a developed vascular system, there 
is no definite circulation. But along with the structural 
evolution which establishes a finished apparatus for dis- 
tributing blood, there goes on the functional evolution 
which establishes large and rapid movements of blood, 
definite in their courses and definitely distinguished as 
efferent and afferent, and that are heterogeneous not simply 
in their directions but in their characters — being here di- 
vided into gushes and there continuous. 

Instance, again, the way in which, accompanying the 
structural differentiations and integrations of the aliment- 
ary canal, there arise differentiations and integrations both 
of its mechanical movements and its actions of a non-me- 
chanical kind. Along an alimentary canal of a primitive 
type, there pass, almost uniformly from end to end, waves of 
constriction. But in a well-organized alimentary canal, 
the waves of constriction are widely unlike at different 
parts, in their kinds, strengths, and rapidities. In the 
mouth they become movements of prehension and mastica- 
tion — now occurring in quick succession and now ceasing 
for hours. In the oesophagus these contractions, propulsive 
in their office, and travelling with considerable speed, take 



400 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 

place at intervals during eating, and then do not take place 
till the next meal. In the stomach another modification of 
this originally uniform action occurs: the muscular con- 
strictions are powerful, and continue during the long pe- 
riods that the stomach contains food. Throughout the upper 
intestines, again, a further difference shows itself — the 
waves travel along without cessation but are relatively mod- 
erate. Finally, in the rectum this rhythm departs in an- 
other way from the common type: quiescence lasting for 
many hours, is followed by a series of strong contractions. 
Meanwhile, the essential actions which these movements aid, 
have been growing more definitely heterogeneous. Secre- 
tion and absorption are no longer carried on in much the 
same way from end to end of the tube ; but the general func- 
tion divides into various subordinate functions. The sol- 
vents and ferments furnished by the coats of the canal and 
the appended glands, become widely unlike at upper, mid- 
dle, and lower parts of the canal; implying different kinds 
of molecular changes. Here the process is mainly secretory, 
there it is mainly absorbent, while in other places, as in 
the oesophagus, neither secretion nor absorption takes place 
to any appreciable extent. While these and 

other internal motions, sensible and insensible, are being 
rendered more various, and severally more consolidated and 
distinct, there is advancing the integration by which they 
are united into local groups of motions and a combined sys- 
tem of motions. While the function of alimentation sub- 
divides, its sub-divisions become co-ordinated, so that mus- 
cular and secretory actions go on in concert, and so that 
excitement of one part of the canal sets up excitement 
of the rest. Moreover, the whole alimentary function, 
while it supplies matter for the circulatory and respira- 
tory functions, becomes so integrated with them that it 
cannot for a moment go on without them. And, as evolu- 
tion advances, all three of these fundamental functions 
fall into greater subordination to the nervous functions — 






/ 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 401 

• 

depend more and more on the due amount of nervous dis- 
charge. 

When we trace up the functions of external organs the 
same truth discloses itself. Microscopic creatures are 
moved through the water by oscillations of the cilia cover- 
ing their surfaces; and various larger forms, as the Turbel- 
laria, progress by ciliary action over solid surfaces. These 
motions of cilia are, in the first place, severally very minute ; 
in the second place they are homogeneous; and in the third 
place there is but little definiteness in them individually, or 
in their joint product, which is mostly a mere random 
change of place not directed to any selected point. Con- 
trasting this ciliary action with the action of developed loco- 
motive organs of whatever kind, we see that instead of in- 
numerable small or unintegrated movements there are a few 
comparatively large or integrated movements; that actions 
all alike are replaced by actions partially unlike; and that 
instead of being very feebly or almost accidentally co-ordi- 
nated, their co-ordination is such as to render the motions of 
the body as a whole, precise. A parallel contrast, 

less extreme but sufficiently decided, is seen when we pass 
from the lower types of creatures with limbs to the higher 
types of creatures with limbs. The legs of a Centipede have 
motions that are numerous, small, and homogeneous; and 
are so little integrated that when the creature is divided 
and sub-divided, the legs belonging to each part propel 
that part independently. But in one of the higher Annu- 
losa, as a Crab, the relatively few limbs have motions that 
are comparatively large in their amounts, that are consid- 
erably unlike one another, and that are integrated into com- 
pound motions of tolerable definiteness. 

§ 143. The last illustrations are introductory to illustra- 
tions of the kind we class as psychical. They are the physio- 
( ; logical aspects of the simpler among those functions which, 
under a more special and complex aspect, we distinguish as 



402 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 

psychological. The phenomena subjectively known as 
changes in consciousness, are objectively known as nervous 
excitations and discharges, which science now interprets into 
modes of motion. Hence, in following up organic evolution, 
the advance of retained motion in integration, in hetero- 
geneity, and in deiiniteness, may be expected to show itself 
alike in the visible nervo-muscular actions and in the cor- 
relative mental changes. We may conveniently look at the 
facts as exhibited during individual evolution, before look- 
ing at them as exhibited in general evolution. 

The progress of a child in speech, very completely ex- 
hibits the transformation. Infantine noises are comparative- 
ly homogeneous; alike as being severally long-drawn and 
nearly uniform from end to end, and as being constantly 
repeated with but little variation of quality between narrow 
limits. They are quite un-coordinated — there is no integra- 
tion of them into compound sounds. They are inarticulate, 
or without those definite beginnings and endings character- 
izing the sounds we call words. Progress shows itself first 
in the multiplication of the inarticulate sounds : the extreme 
vowels are added to the medium vowels, and the compound 
to the simple. Presently the movements Avhich form the 
simpler consonants are achieved, and some of the sounds 
become sharply cut ; but this deiiniteness is partial, for only 
initial consonants being used, the sounds end vaguely. 
While an approach to distinctness thus results, there also 
results, by combination of different consonants with the 
same vowels, an increase of heterogeneity; and along with 
the complete distinctness which terminal consonants give, 
arises a further great addition to the number of unlike 
sounds produced. The more difficult consonants and the 
compound consonants, imperfectly articulated at first, are 
by and by articulated with precision; and there comes yet 
another multitude of different and definite words — words 
that imply many kinds of vocal movements, severally per- 
formed with exactness, as well as perfectly integrated into 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 403 

complex groups. The subsequent advance to dissyllables 
and polysyllables, and to involved combinations of words, 
shows the still higher degree of integration and heterogene- 
ity eventually reached by these organic motions. The 
acts of consciousness correlated with these nervo-muscular 
acts, of course go through parallel phases; and the advance 
from childhood to maturity yields daily proof that the 
changes which, on their physical side are nervous processes, 
and on their mental side are processes of thought, become 
more various, more defined, more coherent. At first the 
intellectual functions are very much alike in kind — recog- 
nitions and classifications of simple impressions alone go on; 
but in course of time these functions become multiform. 
Reasoning grows distinguishable, and eventually we have 
conscious induction and deduction; deliberate recollection 
and deliberate imagination are added to simple unguided 
association of ideas; more special modes of mental action, 
as those which result in mathematics, music, poetry, arise; 
and within each of these divisions the mental processes 
are ever being further differentiated. In definiteness it is 
the same. The infant makes its observations so inac- 
curately that it fails to distinguish individuals. The child 
errs continually in its spelling, its grammar, its arithmetic. 
The youth forms incorrect judgments on the affairs of life. 
Only with maturity comes that precise co-ordination in the 
nervous processes that is implied by a good adjustment of 
thoughts to things. Lastly, with the integration by which 
simple mental acts are combined into complex mental acts, 
it is so likewise. In the nursery you cannot obtain con- 
tinuous attention — there is inability to form a coherent 
series of impressions; and there is a parallel inability to 
unite many co-existent impressions, even of the same order: 
witness the way in which a child's remarks on a picture, 
show that it attends only to the individual objects repre- 
sented, and never to the picture as a whole. But with 
advancing years it becomes possible to understand an in- 



404 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED/ 

volved sentence, to follow long trains of reasoning, to hold 
in one mental grasp numerous concurrent circumstances. 
The like progressive integration takes place among the 
mental changes we distinguish as feelings ; which in a child 
act singly, producing impulsiveness, but in an adult act more 
in concert, producing a comparatively balanced conduct. 

After these illustrations supplied by individual evolu- 
tion, we may deal briefly with those supplied by general evo- 
lution, which are analogous to them. A creature of very low 
intelligence, when aware of some large object in motion 
near it, makes a spasmodic movement, causing, it may 
be, a leap or a dart. The perceptions implied are rela- 
tively simple, homogeneous, and indefinite: the moving ob- 
jects are not distinguished in their kinds as injurious or 
otherwise, as advancing or receding. The actions of escape 
are similarly all of one kind, have no adjustments of direc- 
tion, and may bring the creature nearer the source of peril 
instead of further off. A stage higher, when the dart or the 
leap is away from danger, we see the nervous changes so 
far specialized that there results distinction of direction; 
indicating a greater variety among them, a greater co-ordi- 
nation or integration of them in each process, and a greater 
definiteness. In still higher animals that discriminate be- 
tween enemies and not-enemies, as a bird that flies from a 
man but not from a cow, the acts of perception have 
severally become united into more complex wholes, since 
cognition of certain differential attributes is implied; they 
have become more multiform, since each additional com- 
ponent impression adds to the number of possible com- 
pounds; and they have, by consequence, become more spe- 
cific in their correspondences with objects — -more definite. 
And then in animals so intelligent that they identify by 
sight not species only but individuals of a species, the 
mental changes are yet further distinguished in the same 
three ways. In the course of human evolution the 

law is equally manifested. The thoughts of the savage are 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 405 

nothing like so heterogeneous in their kinds as those of the 
civilized man, whose complex environment presents a multi- 
plicity of new phenomena. His mental acts, too, are much 
less involved — he has no words for abstract ideas, and is 
found to be incapable of integrating the elements of such 
ideas. And in all but simple matters there is none of that 
precision in his thinking which, among civilized men, leads 
to the exact conclusions of science. ISTor do the emotions, 
fail to exhibit a parallel contrast. 

§ 144. How in societies the movements or functions pro- 
duced by the confluence of individual actions, increase in 
their amounts, their multiformities, their precision, and 
their combination, scarcely needs insisting upon after what 
has been pointed out in foregoing chapters. For the sake 
of symmetry of statement, however, a typical example or 
two may be set down. 

Take the actions devoted to defence or aggression. At 
first the military function, undifferentiated from the rest 
(all men in primitive societies being warriors) is relatively 
homogeneous, is ill-combined, and is indefinite: savages 
making a joint attack severally fight independently, in 
similar ways, and without order. But as societies evolve 
and the military function becomes separate, we see that 
while its scale increases, it progresses in multiformity, in 
definiteness, and in combination. The movements of the 
thousands of soldiers that replace the tens of warriors, are 
divided and re-divided in their kinds — here are bodies that 
manoeuvre and fire artillery; there are battalions that fight 
on foot; and elsewhere are troops that charge on horseback. 
Within each of these differentiated functions there come 
others: there are distinct duties discharged by privates, ser- 
geants, captains, colonels, generals, as also by those who 
constitute the commissariat and those who attend to the 
wounded. The actions that have thus become comparative- 
ly heterogeneous in general and in detail, have simultane- 



406 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 

ously increased in precision. Accuracy of evolutions is 
given by perpetual drill ; so that in battle, men and the regi- 
ments formed of them, are made to take definite positions 
and perform definite acts at definite times. Once more, 
there has gone on that integration by which the multiform 
actions of an army are directed to a single end. By a co-or- 
dinating apparatus having the commander-in-chief for its 
^centre, the charges, and halts, and retreats are duly con- 
certed; and a hundred thousand individual actions are 
united under one will. 

The progress here so clearly marked, is a progress trace- 
able throughout social functions at large. Comparing the 
rule of a savage chief with that of a civilized government, 
aided by its subordinate local governments and their officers, 
down to the police in the streets, we see how, as men have 
advanced from tribes of tens to nations of millions, the regu- 
lative process has grown large in amount; how, guided 
by written laws, it has passed from vagueness and irregu- 
larity to comparative precision; and how it has sub-divided 
into processes increasingly multiform. Or observing how 
the barter that goes on among barbarians, differs from our 
own commercial processes, by which a million's worth of 
commodities is distributed daily; by which the relative val- 
ues of articles immensely varied in kinds and qualities are 
measured, and the supplies adjusted to the demands; and 
by which industrial activities of all orders are so combined 
that each depends on the rest and aids the rest; we see that 
the kind of action which constitutes trade, has become pro- 
gressively more vast, more varied, more definite, and more 
integrated. 

§ 145. A finished conception of Evolution we thus find 
to be one which includes the re-distribution of the retained 
motion, as well as that of the component matter. This 
added element of the conception is scarcely, if at all, less 
important than the other. The movements of the Solar 



THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONCLUDED. 407 

System have for us a significance equal to that which the 
sizes, forms, and relative distances of its members possess. 
And of the phenomena presented by an organism, it must 
be admitted that the combined sensible and insensible ac- 
tions we call its life, do not yield in interest to its structural 
traits. Leaving out, however, all implied reference to the 
way in which these two orders of facts concern lis, it is clear 
that with each re-distribution of matter there necessarily 
goes a re-distribution of motion ; and that the unified knowl- 
edge constituting Philosophy, must comprehend both as- 
pects of the transformation. 

While, then, we have to contemplate the matter of an 
evolving aggregate as undergoing, not progressive integra- 
tion simply, but as simultaneously undergoing various sec- 
ondary re-distributions; we have also to contemplate the 
motion of an evolving aggregate, not only as being gradually 
dissipated, but as passing through many secondary re-distri- 
butions on the way toward dissipation. As the structural 
complexities that arise during compound evolution, are in- 
cidental to the progress from the extreme of diffusion to the 
extreme of concentration; so the functional complexities 
accompanying them, are incidental to the progress from the 
greatest quantity of contained motion to the least quantity 
of contained motion. And we have to state these con- 
comitants of both transformations, as well as their begin- 
nings and ends. 

Our formula, therefore, needs an additional clause. To 
combine this satisfactorily with the clauses as they stand in 
the last chapter, is scarcely practicable ; and for convenience 
of expression it will be best to change their order. Doing 
this, and making the requisite addition, the formula finally 
stands thus : — Evolution is an integration of matter and 
concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the 
matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity 
to a definite, coherent heterogeneity ; and during which the 
retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE INTERPRETATION OF EVOLUTION. 

§ 146. Is this law ultimate or derivative? Must we rest 
satisfied with the conclusion that throughout all classes of 
concrete phenomena such is the course of transformation? 
Or is it possible for us to ascertain why such is the course 
of transformation? May we seek for some all-pervading 
principle which underlies this all-pervading process? Can 
the inductions set forth in the preceding four chapters be 
reduced to deductions? 

Manifestly this community of result implies community 
of cause. It may be that of such cause no account can be 
given, further than that the Unknowable is manifested to us 
after this mode. Or, it may be that this mode of mani- 
festation is reducible to a simpler mode, from which these 
many complex effects follow. Analogy suggests the latter 
inference. Just as it was possible to interpret the empirical 
generalizations called Kepler's laws, as necessary conse- 
quences of the law of gravitation; so it may be possible to 
interpret the foregoing empirical generalizations as neces- 
sary consequences of some deeper law. 

Unless we succeed in finding a rationale of this universal 
metamorphosis, we obviously fall short of that completely 
unified knowledge constituting Philosophy. As they at 
present stand, the several conclusions we have lately reached 
appear to be independent — there is no demonstrated con- 
nexion between increasing definiteness and increasing het- 

408 



THE INTERPRETATION OF EVOLUTION. 409 

erogeneity, or between both and increasing integration. 
Still less evidence is there that these laws of the re-distribu- 
tion of matter and motion, are necessarily correlated with 
those laws of the direction of motion and the rhythm of mo- 
tion, previously set forth. But until we see these now sepa- 
rate truths to be implications of one truth, our knowledge re- 
mains imperfectly coherent. 

§ 147. The task before us, then, is that of exhibiting 
the phenomena of Evolution in synthetic order. Setting out 
from an established ultimate principle, it has to be shown 
that the course of transformation among all kinds of ex- 
istences, cannot but be that which we have seen it to be. 
It has to be shown that the re-distribution of matter and 
motion, must everywhere take place in those ways, and pro- 
duce those traits, which celestial bodies, organisms, societies, 
alike display. And it has to be shown that this universality 
of process, results from the same necessity which determines 
each simplest movement around us, down to the accelerated 
fall of a stone or the recurrent beat of a harp-string. 

In other words, the phenomena of Evolution have to be 
deduced from the Persistence of Force. As before said — 
" to this an ultimate analysis brings us down; and'on this 
a rational synthesis must build up." This being the ulti- 
mate truth which transcends experience by underlying it, 
so furnishing a common basis on which the widest general- 
izations stand, these widest generalizations are to be unified 
by referring them to this common basis. Already the 
truths manifested throughout concrete phenomena of all 
orders, that there is equivalence among transformed forces, 
that motion follows the line of least resistance, and that it is 
universally rhythmic, we have found to be severally dedu- 
cible from the persistence of force; and this affiliation of 
them on the persistence of force has reduced them to a co- 
herent whole. Here we have similarly to affiliate the univer- 
sal traits of Evolution, by showing that, given the persist- 
28 






410 THE INTERPRETATION OF EVOLUTION. 

ence of force, the re-distribution of matter and motion neces- 
sarily proceeds in such way as to produce them; and by 
doing this we shall unite them as co-relative aspects of one 
law, at the same time that we unite this law with the fore- 
going simpler laws. 

§ 148. Before proceeding it will be well to set down 
some principles that must be borne in mind. ' In interpreting 
Evolution we shall have to consider, under their special 
forms, the various resolutions of force that accompany the 
re-distribution of matter and motion. Let us glance at such 
resolutions under their most general forms. 

Any incident force is primarily divisible into its effective 
and non-effective portions. In mechanical impact, the en- 
tire momentum of a striking body is never communicated to 
the body struck: even under those most favourable condi- 
tions in which the striking body loses all its sensible motion, 
there still remains with it some of the original momentum, 
under the shape of that insensible motion produced among 
its particles by the collision. Of the light or heat falling on 
any mass, a part, more or less considerable, is reflected ; and 
only the remaining part works molecular changes in the 
mass. Next it is to be noted that the effective 

force is itself divisible into the temporarily effective and the 
permanently effective. The units of an aggregate acted on, 
may undergo those rhythmical changes of relative position 
which constitute increased vibration, as well as other 
changes of relative position which are not from instant to 
instant neutralized by opposite ones. Of these, the first, 
disappearing in the shape of radiating undulations, leave the 
molecular arrangement as it originally was; while the sec- 
ond conduce to that re-arrangement characterizing com- 
pound Evolution. Yet a further distinction has 
to be made. The permanently effective force works out 
changes of relative position of two kinds — the insensible 
and the sensible. The insensible transpositions among the 



THE INTERPRETATION OF EVOLUTION. 4H 

units are those constituting molecular changes, including 
what we call chemical composition and decomposition; and 
it is these which we recognize as the qualitative differences 
that arise in an aggregate. The sensible transpositions are 
such as result when certain of the units, instead of being 
put into different relations with their immediate neighbours, 
are carried away froni them and deposited elsewhere. 

Concerning these divisions and sub-divisions of any force 
affecting an aggregate, the fact which it chiefly concerns us 
to observe is, that they are complementary to each other. 
Of the whole incident force, the effective must be that which 
remains after deducting the non-effective. The two parts of 
the effective force must vary inversely as each other : where 
much of it is temporarily effective, little of it can be perma- 
nently effective; and vice versa. Lastly, the permanently 
effective force, being expended in working both the insen- 
sible re-arrangements which constitute molecular modifica- 
tion, and the sensible re-arrangements which result in struc- 
ture, must generate of either kind an amount that is great 
or small in proportion as it has generated a small or great 
amount of the other. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



§ 149. The difficulty of dealing with transformations so 
many-sided as those which all existences have undergone, 
or are undergoing, is such as to make a definite or complete 
deductive interpretation seem almost hopeless. So to grasp 
the total process of re-distribution of matter and motion, as 
to see simultaneously its several necessary results in their 
actual inter-dependence, is scarcely possible. There is, how- 
ever, a mode of rendering the process as a whole tolerably 
comprehensible. Though the genesis of the re-arrangement 
undergone by every evolving aggregate, is in itself one, it 
presents to our intelligence several factors; and after in- 
terpreting the effects of each separately, we may, by syn- 
thesis of the interpretations, form an adequate conception. 

On setting out, the proposition which comes first in logi- 
cal order, is, that some re-arrangement must result ; and this 
proposition may be best dealt with under the more specific- 
shape, that the condition of homogeneity is a condition of 
unstable equilibrium. 

First, as to the meaning of the terms; respecting which 
some readers may need explanation. The phrase unstable 
equilibrium is one used in mechanics to express a balance of 
forces of such kind, that the interference of any further 
force, however minute, will destroy the arrangement previ- 

* The idea developed in this chapter originally formed part of an article 
on " Transcendental Physiology," published in 185?. Sec Essays, pp. 

279-290. 

412 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 413 

ously subsisting ; and bring about a totally different arrange- 
ment. Thus, a stick poised on its lower end is in unstable 
equilibrium: however exactly it may be placed in a perpen- 
dicular position, as soon as it is left to itself it begins, at first 
imperceptibly, to lean on one side, and with increasing rapid- 
ity falls into another attitude. Conversely, a stick suspended 
from its upper end is in stable equilibrium: however much 
disturbed, it will return to the same position. The proposi- 
tion is, then, that the state of homogeneity, like the state of 
the stick poised on its lower end, is one that cannot be main- 
tained. Let us take a few illustrations. 

Of mechanical ones the most familiar is that of the 
scales. If they be accurately made, and not clogged by dirt 
or rust, it is impossible to keep a pair of scales perfectly bal- 
anced: eventually one scale will descend and the other as- 
cend—they will assume a heterogeneous relation. Again, if 
we sprinkle over the surface of a fluid a number of equal- 
sized particles, having an attraction for each other, they 
will, no matter how uniformly distributed, by and by con- 
centrate irregularly into one or more groups. Were it pos- 
sible to bring a mass of water into a state of perfect homoge- 
neity — a state of complete quiescence, and exactly equal 
density throughout — yet the radiation of heat from neigh- 
bouring bodies, by affecting differently its different parts, 
would inevitably produce inequalities of density and conse- 
quent currents ; and would so render it to that extent hetero- 
geneous. Take a piece of red-hot matter, and however 
evenly heated it may at first be, it will quickly cease to be so: 
the exterior, cooling faster than the interior, will become 
different in temperature from it. And the lapse into hetero- 
geneity of temperature, so obvious in this extreme case, 
takes place more or less in all cases. The action 

of chemical forces supplies other illustrations. Expose a 
fragment of metal to air or water, and in course of time it 
will be coated with a film of oxide, carbonate, or other com-' 
pound: that is — its outer parts will become unlike its inner 



4:14: THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

parts. Usually the heterogeneity produced by the action 
of chemical forces on the surfaces of masses, is not strik- 
ing; because the changed portions are soon washed away, 
or otherwise removed. But if this is prevented, compara- 
tively complex structures result. Quarries of trap-rock 
contain some striking examples. Not unfrequently a piece 
of trap may be found reduced, by the action of the weather, 
to a number of loosely-adherent coats, like those of an 
onion. Where the block has been quite undisturbed, we 
may trace the whole series of these, from the angular, 
irregular outer one, through successively included ones in 
which the shape becomes gradually rounded, ending 
finally in a spherical nucleus. On comparing the original 
mass of stone with its group of concentric coats, each of 
which differs from the rest in form, and probably in the state 
of decomposition at which it has arrived, we get a marked 
illustration of the multiformity to which, in lapse of time, 
a uniform body may be brought by external chemical 
action. The instability of the homogeneous is equal- 

ly seen in the changes set up throughout the interior of a 
mass, when it consists of units that are not rigidly bound to- 
gether. The atoms of a precipitate never remains separate, 
and equably distributed through the fluid in which they 
make their appearance. They aggregate either into crystal- 
line grains, each containing an immense number of atoms, 
or they aggregate into flocculi, each containing a yet larger 
number; and where the mass of fluid is great, and the process 
prolonged, these flocculi do not continue equi-distant, but 
break up into groups. That is to say, there is a destruc- 
tion of the balance at first subsisting among the diffused par- 
ticles, and also of the balance at first subsisting among the 
groups into which these particles unite. Certain solutions 

of non-crystalline substances in highly volatile liquids, exhib- 
it in the course of half an hour a whole series of changes that 
"are set up in the alleged way. If for example a little shell- 
lac-varnish (made by dissolving shell-lac in coal-naphtha 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 415 

until it is of the consistence of cream) be poured on a piece 
of paper, the surface of the varnish will shortly become, 
marked by polygonal divisions, which, first appearing round 
the edge of the mass, spread towards its centre. Under a 
lense these irregular polygons of five or more sides, are seen 
to be severally bounded by dark lines, on each side of which 
there are light-coloured borders. By the addition of matter 
to their inner edges, the borders slowly broaden, and thus 
encroach on the areas of the polygons ; until at length there 
remains nothing but a dark spot in the centre of each. At 
the same time the boundaries of the polygons become 
curved; and they end by appearing like spherical sacs 
pressed together ; strangely simulating (but only simulating) 
a group of nucleated cells. Here a rapid loss of homogene- 
ity is exhibited in three ways: — First, in the formation of 
the film, which is the seat of these changes; second, in the 
formation of the polygonal sections into which this film di- 
vides; and third, in the contrast that arises between the 
polygonal sections round the edge, where they are small 
and early formed, and those in the centre which are larger 
and formed later. 

The instability thus variously illustrated is obviously 
consequent on the fact, that the several parts of any homo- 
geneous aggregation are necessarily exposed to different 
forces — forces that differ either in kind or amount; and be- 
ing exposed to different forces they are of necessity differ- 
ently modified. The relations of outside and inside, and of 
comparative nearness to neighbouring sources of influence, 
imply the reception of influences that are unlike in quantity 
or quality, or both; and it follows that unlike changes 
will be produced in the parts thus dissimilarly acted upon. 

For like reasons it is manifest that the process must re- 
peat itself in each of the subordinate groups of units that 
are differentiated by the modifying forces. Each of these 
subordinate groups, like the original group, must gradually, 
in obedience to the influences acting upon it, lose its balance 



416 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

of parts — must pass from a uniform into a multiform state. 
And so on continuously. Whence indeed it is clear that, 

not only must the homogeneous lapse into the non-homo- 
geneous, but that the more homogeneous must tend ever to 
become less homogeneous. If any given whole, instead of 
being absolutely uniform throughout, consist of parts dis- 
tinguishable from each other — if each of these parts, while 
somewhat unlike other parts, is uniform within itself; then, 
each of them being in unstable equilibrium, it follows that 
while the changes set up within it must render it multiform, 
they must at the same time render the whole more multi- 
form than before. The general principle, now to be fol- 
lowed out in its applications, is thus somewhat more compre- 
hensive than the title of the chapter implies. ~No demurrer 
to the conclusions drawn, can be based on the ground that 
perfect homogeneity nowhere exists; since, whether that 
state with which we commence be or be not one of perfect 
homogeneity, the process must equally be towards a relative 
heterogeneity. 

§ 150. The stars are distributed with a three-fold irregu- 
larity. There is first the marked contrast between the 
plane of the milky way and other parts of the heavens, in 
respect of the quantities of stars within given visual areas. 
There are secondary contrasts of like kind in the milky way 
itself, which has its thick and thin places; as well as 
throughout the celestial spaces in general, which are much 
more closely strown in some regions than in others. And 
there is a third order of contrasts produced by the aggre- 
gation of stars into small clusters. Besides this heteroge- 
neity of distribution of the stars in general, considered with- 
out distinction of kinds, a further such heterogeneity is dis- 
closed when they are classified by their differences of colour, 
which doubtless answer to differences of physical constitu- 
tion. While the yellow stars are found in all parts of the 
heavens, the red and blue stars are not so: there are wide 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 417 

regions in which both red and blue stars are rare ; there are 
regions in which the blue occur in considerable numbers, 
and there are other regions in which the red are comparative- 
ly abundant. Yet one more irregularity of like significance 
is presented by the nebulae, — aggregations of matter which, 
whatever be their nature, most certainly belong to our 
sidereal system. For the nebulae are not dispersed with any- 
thing like uniformity; but are abundant around the poles of 
the galactic circle and rare in the neighbourhood of its 
plane. ]^o one will expect that anything like a 

definite interpretation of this structure can be given on the 
hypothesis of Evolution, or any other hypothesis. The most 
that can be looked for is some reason for thinking that 
irregularities, not improbably of these kinds, would occur in 
the course of Evolution, supposing it to have taken place. 
Any one called on to assign such reason might argue, that if 
the matter of which stars and all other celestial bodies con- 
sist, be assumed to have originally existed in a diffused form 
throughout a space far more vast even than that which our 
sidereal system now occupies, the instability of the homo- 
geneous would negative its continuance in that state. In de- 
fault of an absolute balance among the forces with which 
the dispersed particles acted on each other (which could not 
exist in any aggregation having limits) he might show that 
motion and consequent changes of distribution would neces- 
sarily result. The next step in the argument would be that 
in matter of such extreme tenuity and feeble cohesion there 
would be motion towards local centres of gravity, as well as 
towards the general centre of gravity; just as, to use a 
humble illustration, the particles of a precipitate aggregate 
into floceuli at the same time that they sink towards the 
earth. ■ He might urge that in the one case as in the other, 
these smallest and earliest local aggregations must gradually 
divide into groups, each concentrating to its own centre of 
gravity, — a process which must repeat itself on a larger and 
larger scale. In conformity with the law that motion once 



418 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

set up in any direction becomes itself a cause of subsequent 
motion in that direction, he might further infer that the 
heterogeneities thus set up would tend ever to become more 
pronounced. Established mechanical principles would 
justify him in the conclusion that the motions of these ir- 
regular masses of slightly aggregated nebular matter to- 
wards their common centre of gravity must be severally ren- 
dered curvelinear, by the resistance of the medium from 
which they were precipitated; and that in consequence of 
the irregularities of distribution already set up, such con- 
flicting curvelinear motions must, by composition of forces, 
end in a rotation of the incipient sidereal system. He might 
without difficulty show that the resulting centrifugal force 
must so far modify the process of general aggregation, as to 
prevent anything like uniform distribution of the stars even- 
tually formed — that there must arise a contrast such as we 
see between the galactic circle and the rest of the heavens. 
He might draw the further not unwarrantable inference, 
that differences in the process of local concentration would 
probably result from the unlikeness between the physical 
conditions existing around the general axis of rotation and 
those existing elsewhere. To which he might add, that 
after the formation of distinct stars, the ever-increasing 
irregularities of distribution due to continuance of the same 
causes would produce that patchiness which distinguishes 
the heavens in both its larger and smaller areas. We 

need not here however commit ourselves to such far-reach- 
ing speculations. For the purposes of the general argument 
it is needful only to show, that any finite mass of diffused 
matter, even though vast enough to form our whole siderea I 
system, could not be in stable equilibrium; that in default 
of absolute sphericity, absolute uniformity of composition, 
and absolute symmetry of relation to all forces external to it, 
its concentration must go on with an ever-increasing irregu- 
larity ; and that thus the present aspect of the heavens is not, 
so far as we can judge, incongruous with the hypothesis of a 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 419 

general evolution consequent on the instability of the homo- 
geneous. 

Descending to that more limited form of the nebular 
hypothesis which regards the solar system as having resulted 
by gradual concentration; and assuming this concentration 
to have advanced so far as to produce a rotating spheroid of 
nebulous matter; let us consider what further consequence 
the instability of the homogeneous necessitates. Having 
become oblate in figure, unlike in the densities of its centre 
and surface, unlike in their temperatures, and unlike in the 
velocities with which its parts move round their common 
axis, such a mass can no longer be called homogeneous; and 
therefore any further changes exhibited by it as a whole, 
can illustrate the general law, only as being changes from a 
more homogeneous to a less homogeneous state. Changes of 
this kind are to be found in the transformations of such of its 
parts as are still homogeneous within themselves. If we 
accept the conclusion of Laplace, that the equatorial portion 
of this rotating and contracting spheroid will at successive 
stages acquire a centrifugal force great enough to prevent 
any nearer approach to the centre round which it rotates, 
and will so be left behind by the inner parts of the spheroid 
in its still-continued contraction ; we shall find, in the fate of 
the detached ring, a fresh exemplification of the principle 
we are following out. Consisting of gaseous matter, such a 
ring, even if absolutely uniform at the time of its detach- 
ment, cannot continue so. To maintain its equilibrium 
there must be an almost perfect uniformity in the action of 
all external forces upon it (almost, we must say, because the 
cohesion, even of extremely attenuated matter, might suffice 
to neutralize very minute disturbances) ; and against this the 
probabilities are immense. In the absence of equality 
among the forces, internal and external, acting on such a 
ring, there must be a point or points at which the cohesion of 
its parts is less than elsewhere — a point or points at which 
rupture will therefore take place. Laplace assumed that 



420 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

the ring would rupture at one place only; and would then 
collapse on itself. But this is a more than questionable 
assumption — such at least I know to be the opinion of an 
authority second to none among those now living. So 
vast a ring, consisting of matter having such feeble cohe- 
sion, must break up into many parts. Nevertheless, it is 
still inferable from the instability of the homogeneous, that 
the ultimate result which Laplace predicted would take 
place. For even supposing the masses of nebulous matter 
into which such a ring separated, were so equal in their 
sizes and distances as to attract each other with exactly 
equal forces (which is infinitely improbable); yet the un- 
equal action of external disturbing forces would inevitably 
destroy their equilibrium — there would be one or more 
points at which adjacent masses would begin to part com- 
pany. Separation once commenced, would with ever-accel- 
erating speed lead to a grouping of the masses. And obvi- 
ously a like result would eventually take place with the 
groups thus formed; until they at length aggregated into a 
single mass. 

Leaving the region of speculative astronomy, let us con- 
sider the Solar System as it at present exists. And here it 
will be well, in the first place, to note a fact which may be 
thought at variance with the foregoing argument — namely, 
the still-continued existence of Saturn's rings; and especially 
of the internal nebulous ring lately discovered. To the 
objection that the outer rings maintain their equilibrium, 
the reply is that the comparatively great cohesion of liquid 
or solid substance would suffice to prevent any slight tend- 
ency to rupture from taking effect. And that a nebulous 
ring here still preserves its continuity, does not really nega- 
tive the foregoing conclusion; since it happens under the 
quite exceptional influence of those symmetrically disposed 
forces which the external rings exercise on it. Here 

indeed it deserves to be noted, that though at first sight the 
Saturnian system appears at variance with the doctrine that 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 421 

a state of homogeneity is one of unstable equilibrium, it does 
in reality furnish a curious confirmation of this doctrine. 
For Saturn is not quite concentric with his rings ; and it has 
been proved mathematically that were he and his rings con- 
centrically situated, they could not remain so: the homo- 
geneous relation being unstable, would gravitate into a 
heterogeneous one. And this fact serves to remind us of the 
allied one presented throughout the whole Solar System. 
All orbits, whether of planets or satellites, are more or less 
excentric — none of them are perfect circles; and were they 
perfect circles they would soon become ellipses. Mutual 
perturbations would inevitably generate excentricities. 
That is to say, the homogeneous relations would lapse into 
heterogeneous ones. 

§ 151. Already so many references have been made to 
the gradual formation of a crust over the originally incan- 
descent Earth, that it may be thought superfluous again to 
name it. It has not, however, been before considered in 
connexion with the general principle under discussion. 
Here then it must be noted as a necessary consequence of the 
instability of the homogeneous. In this cooling down and 
solidification of the Earth's surface, we have one of the sim- 
plest, as well as one of the most important, instances, of that 
change from a uniform to a multiform state which occurs in 
any mass through exposure of its different parts to different 
conditions. To the differentiation of the Earth's ex- 

terior from its interior thus brought about, we must add one 
of the most conspicuous differentiations which the exterior 
itself afterwards undergoes, as being similarly brought 
about. Were the conditions to which the surface of the 
Earth is exposed, alike in all directions, there would be no 
obvious reason why certain of its parts should become per- 
manently unlike the rest. But being unequally exposed to 
the chief external centre of force — the Sun — its main divis- 
ions become unequally modified: as the crust thickens and 



422 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

cools, there arises that contrast, now so decided, between the 
polar and equatorial regions. 

Along with these most marked physical differentiations 
of the Earth, which are manifestly consequent on the insta- 
bility of the homogeneous, there have been going on numer- 
ous chemical differentiations, admitting of similar interpre- 
tation. Without raising the question whether, as some 
think, the so-called simple substances are themselves com- 
pounded of unknown elements (elements which we cannot 
separate by artificial heat, but which existed separately 
when the heat of the Earth was greater than any which we 
can produce), — without raising this question, it will suffice 
the present purpose to show how, in place of that compara- 
tive homogeneity of the Earth's crust, chemically consid- 
ered, which must have existed when its temperature was 
high, there has arisen, during its cooling, an increasing 
chemical heterogeneity: each element or compound, being 
unable to maintain its homogeneity in presence of various 
surrounding affinities, having fallen into heterogeneous 
combinations. Let us contemplate this change somewhat in 
detail. There is every reason to believe that at an 

extreme heat, the bodies we call elements cannot combine. 
Even under such heat as can be generated artificially, some 
very strong affinities yield; and the great majority of chemi- 
cal compounds are decomposed at much lower temperatures. 
Whence it seems not improbable that, when the Earth was 
in its first state of incandescence, there were no chemical 
combinations at all. But without drawing this inference, 
let us set out with the unquestionable fact that the com- 
pounds which can exist at the highest temperatures, and 
which must therefore have been the first formed as the 
Earth cooled, are those of the simplest constitutions. The 
protoxides — including under that head the alkalies, earths, 
&c. — are, as a class, the most fixed compounds known: the 
majority of them resisting decomposition by any heat we can 
generate. These, consisting severally of one atom of each 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 423 

component element, are combinations of the simplest order 
— are bnt one degree less homogeneous than the elements 
themselves. Alore heterogeneous than these, more decom- 
posable by heat, and therefore later in the Earth's history, 
are the deutoxides, tritoxides, peroxides, &c. ; in which two, 
three, four, or more atoms of oxygen are united with one 
atom of metal or other base. Still less able to resist heat, 
are the salts; which present us with compound atoms each 
made up of five, six, seven, eight, ten, twelve, or more atoms, 
of three, if not more, kinds. Then there are the hydrated 
salts, of a yet greater heterogeneity, which undergo par- 
tial decomposition at much lower temperatures. After 
them come the further-complicated supersalts and double 
salts, having a stability again decreased; and so through- 
out. After making a few unimportant qualifications de- 
manded by peculiar affinities, I believe no chemist will deny 
it to be a general law of these inorganic combinations 
that, other things equal, the stability decreases as the com- 
plexity increases. And then when we pass to the com- 
pounds that make up organic bodies, we find this general 
law still further exemplified: we find much greater complex- 
ity and much less stability. An atom of albumen, for in- 
stance, consists of 482 ultimate atoms of five different kinds. 
Fibrine, still more intricate in constitution, contains in each 
atom, 298 atoms of carbon, 49 of nitrogen, 2 of sulphur, 
228 of hydrogen, and 92 of oxygen — in all, 6G0 atoms; or, 
more strictly speaking — equivalents. And these two sub- 
stances are so unstable as to decompose at quite moderate 
temperatures; as that to which the outside of a joint of roast 
meat is exposed. Possibly it will be objected that some inor- 
gaiiic compounds, as phosphuretted hydrogen and chloride 
of nitrogen, are more decomposable than most organic com- 
pounds. This is true. But the admission may be made 
without damage to the argument. The proposition is not 
that all simple combinations are more fixed than aU complex 
ones. To establish our inference it is necessary only to show 



424 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

that, as an average fact, the simple combinations can exist 
at a higher temperature than the complex ones. And this is 
wholly beyond question. Thus it is manifest that the 

present chemical heterogeneity of the Earth's surface has 
arisen by degrees as the decrease of heat has permitted ; and 
that it has shown itself in three forms — first, in the multipli- 
cation of chemical compounds; second, in the greater num- 
ber of different elements contained in the more modern of 
these compounds; and third, in the higher and more varied 
multiples in which these more numerous elements combine. 
Without specifying them, it will suffice just to name the 
meteorologic processes eventually set up in the Earth's at- 
mosphere, as further illustrating the alleged law. They 
equally display that destruction of a homogeneous state 
which results from unequal exposure to incident forces. 

§ 152. Take a mass of unorganized but organizable mat- 
ter — either the body of one of the lowest living forms, or the 
germ of one of the higher. Consider its circumstances. 
Either it is immersed in water or air, or it is contained with- 
in a parent organism. Wherever placed, however, its outer 
and inner parts stand differently related to surrounding 
agencies — nutriment, oxygen, and the various stimuli. But 
this is not all. Whether it lies quiescent at the bottom of 
the water or on the leaf of a plant; whether it moves through 
the water preserving some definite attitude ; or whether it is 
in the inside of an adult ; it equally results that certain parts 
of its surface are more exposed to surrounding agencies than 
other parts — in some cases more exposed to light, heat, or 
oxygen, and in others to the maternal tissues and their con- 
tents. Hence must follow the destruction of its original 
equilibrium. This may take place in one of two ways. 
Either the disturbing forces may be such as to overbalance 
the affinities of the organic elements, in which case there 
result those changes which are known as decomposition ; or, 
as is ordinarily the case, such changes are induced as do not 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 425 

destroy the organic compounds, but only modify them: the 
parts most exposed to the modifying forces being most modi- 
fied. To elucidate this, suppose we take a few cases. 

Xote first what appear to be exceptions. Certain 
minute animal forms present us either with no appreciable 
differentiations or with differentiations so obscure as to be 
made out with great difficulty. In the Rhizopods, the sub- 
stance of the jelly-like body remains throughout life unor- 
ganized, even to the extent of having no limiting mem- 
brane; as is proved by the fact that the thread-like processes 
protruded by the mass coalesce on touching each other. 
Whether or not the nearly allied Amoeba, of which the less 
numerous and more bulky processes do not coalesce, lias, as 
lately alleged, something like a cell-wall and a nucleus, it is 
clear that the distinction of parts is very slight ; since parti- 
cles of food pass bodily into the inside through any part of 
the periphery, and since when the creature is crushed to 
pieces, each piece behaves as the whole did. Xow these cases, 
in which there is either no contrast of structure between ex- 
terior and interior or very little, though seemingly opposed 
to the above inference, are really very significant evidences 
of its truth. For what is the peculiarity of this division of 
the Protozoa ? Its members undergo perpetual and irregu- 
lar changes of form — they show no persistent relation of 
parts. What lately formed a portion of the interior is now 
protruded, and, as a temporary limb, is attached to some 
object it happens to touch. What is now a part of the sur- 
face will presently be drawn, along with the atom of nutri- 
ment sticking to it, into the centre of the mass. Either the 
relations of inner and outer have no permanent existence, 
or they are very slightly marked. But by the hypothesis, 
it is only because of their unlike positions with respect to 
modifying forces, that the originally like units of a living 
mass become unlike. We must therefore expect no estab- 
lished differentiation of parts in creatures which exhibit no 
established differences of position in their parts; and we 



426 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

must expect extremely little differentiation of parts where 
the differences of position are but little determined — which 
is just what we find. This negative evidence is 

borne out by positive evidence. When we turn from these 
proteiform specks of living jelly to organisms having an 
unchanging distribution of substance, we find differences of 
tissue corresponding to differences of relative position. In 
all the higher Protozoa, as also in the Protophyta, we meet 
with a fundamental differentiation into cell-membrane and 
cell-contents; answering to that fundamental contrast of 
conditions implied by the terms outside and inside. On 

passing from what are roughly classed as unicellular organ- 
isms, to the lowest of those which consist of aggregated cells, 
we equally observe the connection between structural differ- 
ences and differences of circumstance. Negatively, we see 
that in the sponge, permeated throughout by currents of sea- 
water, the indefiniteness of organization corresponds with 
the absence of definite unlikeness of conditions : the periph- 
eral and central portions are as little contrasted in structure 
as in exposure to surrounding agencies. While positively, 
we see that in a form like the Thalassicolla, which, though 
equally humble, maintains its outer and inner parts in per- 
manently unlike circumstances, there is displayed a rude 
structure obviously subordinated to the primary relations of 
centre and surface : in all its many and important varieties, 
the parts exhibit a more or less concentric arrangement. 

After this primary modification, by which the outer tis- 
sues are differentiated from the inner, the next in order of 
constancy and importance is that by which some part of the 
outer tissues is differentiated from the rest; and this corre- 
sponds with the almost universal fact that some part of the 
outer tissues is more exposed to certain environing influences 
than the rest. Here, as before, the apparent exceptions are 
extremely significant. Some of the lowest vegetal organ- 
isms, as the IJematococci and Protococci, evenly imbedded 
in a mass of mucus, or dispersed through the Arctic snow. 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 427 

display no differentiations of surface; the several parts of 
their surfaces being subjected to no definite contrasts of con- 
ditions. Ciliated spheres such as the Yolvox have no parts 
of their periphery unlike other parts ; and it is not to be ex- 
pected that they should have; since, as they revolve in all 
directions, they do not, in traversing the water, permanently 
expose any part to special conditions. But when we come to 
organisms that are either fixed, or while moving preserve 
definite attitudes, we no longer find uniformity of surface. 
The most general fact which can be asserted with respect to 
the structures of plants and animals, is, that however much 
alike in shape and texture the various parts of the exterior 
may at first be, they acquire un likenesses corresponding to 
the unlikenesses of their relations to surrounding agencies. 
The ciliated germ of a Zoophyte, which, during its locomo- 
tive stage, is distinguishable only into outer and inner tis- 
sues, no sooner becomes fixed, than its upper end begins to 
assume a different structure from its lower. The disc-shaped 
geinmce of the Marchantia, originally alike on both surfaces, 
and falling at random with either side uppermost, imme- 
diately begin to develop rootlets on the under side, and 
stomata on the upper side: a fact proving beyond ques- 
tion, that this primary differentiation is determined by this 
fundamental contrast of conditions. 

Of course in the germs of higher organisms, the meta- 
morphoses immediately due to the instability of the homo- 
geneous, are soon masked by those due to the assumption of 
the hereditary type. Such early changes, however, as are 
common to all classes of organisms, and so cannot be ascribed 
to heredity, entirely conform to the hypothesis. A germ 
which has undergone no developmental modifications, con- 
sists of a spheroidal group of homogeneous cells. Univer- 
sally, the first step in its evolution is the establishment of a 
difference between some of the peripheral cells and the cells 
which form the interior — some of the peripheral cells, after 
repeated spontaneous fissions, coalesce into a membrane; 



428 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

and by continuance of the process this membrane spreads 
until it speedily invests the entire mass, as in mammals, or, 
as in birds, stops short of that for some time. Here we have 
two significant facts. The first is, that the primary unlike- 
ness arises between the exterior and the interior. The sec- 
ond is, that the change which thus initiates development, 
does not take place simultaneously over the whole exterior ; 
but commences at one place, and gradually involves the 
rest. Now these facts are just those which might be inferred 
from the instability of the homogeneous. The surface must, 
more than any other part, become unlike the centre, because 
it is most dissimilarly conditioned; and all parts of the sur- 
face cannot simultaneously exhibit this differentiation, be- 
cause they cannot be exposed to the incident forces with ab- 
solute uniformity. One other general fact of like 
implication remains. Whatever be the extent of this periph- 
eral layer of cells, or blastoderm, as it is called, it presently 
divides into two layers — the serous and mucous ; or, as they 
have been otherwise called, the ectoderm and the endoderm. 
The first of these is formed from that portion of the layer 
which lies in contact with surrounding agents; and the sec- 
ond of them is formed from that portion of the layer which 
lies in contact with the contained mass of yelk. That is to 
say, after the primary differentiation, more or less extensive, 
of surface from centre, the resulting superficial portion un- 
dergoes a secondary differentiation into inner and outer 
parts — a differentiation which is clearly of the same order 
with the preceding, and answers to the next most marked 
contrast of conditions. 

But, as already hinted, this principle, understood in the 
simple form here presented, supplies no key to the detailed 
phenomena of organic development. It fails entirely to ex- 
plain generic and specific peculiarities ; and indeed leaves us 
equally in the dark respecting those more important dis- 
tinctions by which families and orders are marked out. 
Why two ova, similarly exposed in the same pool, should 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 429 

become the one a fish, and the other a reptile, it cannot tell 
ns. That from two different eggs placed under the same 
hen, should respectively come forth a duckling and a 
chicken, is a fact not to be accounted for on the hypothesis 
above developed. "We have here no alternative but to fall 
back upon the unexplained principle of hereditary trans- 
mission. The capacity possessed by an unorganized germ of 
unfolding into a complex adult, which repeats aiftestral 
traits in the minutest details, and that even when it has been 
placed in conditions unlike those of its ancestors, is a capa- 
city we cannot at present understand. That a microscopic 
portion of seemingly structureless matter should embody an 
influence of such kind, that the resulting man will in fifty 
years after become gouty or insane, is a truth which would 
be incredible were it not daily illustrated. Should 

it however turn out, as we shall hereafter find reason for 
suspecting, that these complex differentiations which adults 
exhibit, are themselves the slowly accumulated and trans- 
mitted results of a process like that seen in the first changes 
of the germ; it will follow that even those embryonic 
changes due to hereditary influence, are remote conse- 
quences of the alleged law. Should it be shown that the 
slight modifications wrought during life on each adult, and 
bequeathed to offspring along with all like preceding modi- 
fications, are themselves unlikenesses of parts that are 
produced by unlikenesses of conditions; then it will follow 
that the modifications displayed in the course of embryonic 
development, are partly direct consequences of the insta- 
bility of the homogeneous, and partly indirect consequences 
of it. To give reasons for entertaining this hy- 

pothesis, however, is not needful for the justification of the 
position here taken. It is enough that the most conspicuous 
differentiations which incipient organisms universally dis- 
play, correspond to the most marked differences of condi- 
tions to which their parts are subject. It is enough that the 
habitual contrast between outside and inside, which we 



430 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

know is produced in inorganic masses by unlikeness 
of exposure to incident forces, is strictly paralleled by 
the first contrast that makes its appearance in all organic 
masses. 

It remains to point out that in the assemblage of organ- 
isms constituting a species, the principle enunciated is equal- 
ly traceable. We have abundant materials for the induction 
that ea#h species will not remain uniform, but is ever becom- 
ing to some extent multiform; and there is ground for the 
deduction that this lapse from homogeneity to heterogeneity 
is caused by the subjection of its members to unlike sets of 
circumstances. The fact that in every species, animal and 
vegetal, the individuals are never quite alike; joined with 
the fact that there is in every species a tendency to the pro- 
duction of differences marked enough to constitute varieties; 
form a sufficiently wide basis for the induction. While the 
deduction is confirmed by the familiar experience that va- 
rieties are most numerous and decided where, as among cul- 
tivated plants and domestic animals, the conditions of life 
depart from the original ones, most widely and in the most 
numerous ways. Whether we regard " natural selection " 
as wholly, or only in part, the agency through which varie- 
ties are established, matters not to the general conclusion. 
For as the survival of any variety proves its constitution to 
be in harmony with a certain aggregate of surrounding 
forces — as the multiplication of a variety and the usurpation 
by it of an area previously occupied by some other part of 
the species, implies different effects produced by such aggre- 
gate of forces on the two, it is clear that this aggregate of 
forces is the real cause of the differentiation — it is clear that 
if the variety supplants the original species in some locali- 
ties but not in others, it does so because the aggregate of 
forces in the one locality is unlike that in the other — it is 
clear that the lapse of the species from a state of homogene- 
ity to a state of heterogeneity arises from the exposure of its 
different parts to different aggregates of forces. 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 431 

§ 153. Among mental phenomena it is difficult to estab- 
lish the alleged law without an analysis too extensive for the 
occasion. To show satisfactorily how states of conscious- 
ness, originally homogeneous, become heterogeneous 
through differences in the changes wrought by different 
forces, would require us carefully to trace out the organiza- 
tion of early experiences. Were this done it would become 
manifest that the development of intelligence, is, under one 
of its chief aspects, a dividing into separate classes, the un- 
like things previously confounded together in one class — a 
formation of sub-classes and sub-sub-classes, until the once 
confused aggregate of objects known, is resolved into an 
aggregate which unites extreme heterogeneity among its 
multiplied groups, with complete homogeneity among the 
members of each group. If, for example, we followed, 
through ascending grades of creatures, the genesis of that 
vast structure of knowledge acquired by sight, we should 
find that in the first stage, where eyes suffice for nothing be- 
yond the discrimination of light from darkness, the only pos- 
sible classifications of objects seen, must be those based on 
the manner in which light is obstructed, and the degree in 
which it is obstructed. We should find that by such unde- 
veloped visual organs, the shadows traversing the rudi- 
mentary retina would be merely distinguished into those of 
the stationary objects which the creature passed during its 
own movements, and those of the moving objects which 
came near the creature while it was at rest; and that so the 
extremely general classification of visible things into sta- 
tionary and moving, would be the earliest formed. We 
should find that whereas the simplest eyes are not fitted to 
distinguish between an obstruction of light caused by a small 
object close to, and an obstruction caused by a large object 
at some distance, eyes a little more developed must be com- 
petent to such a distinction; whence must result a vague dif- 
ferentiation of the class of moving objects, into the nearer 
and the more remote. AVe should find that such further im- 



432 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS; 

provements in vision as those which make possible a better 
estimation of distances by adjustment of the optic axes, and 
those which, through enlargement and subdivision of the 
retina, make possible the discrimination of shapes, must 
have the effects of giving greater definiteness to the classes 
already formed, and of sub-dividing these into smaller 
classes, consisting of objects less unlike. And we should 
find that each additional refinement of the perceptive or- 
gans, must similarly lead to a multiplication of divisions 
and a sharpening of the limits of each, division. In every in- 
fant might be traced the analogous transformation of a con- 
fused aggregate of impressions of surrounding objects, not 
recognized as differing in their distances, sizes, and shapes, 
into separate classes of objects unlike each other in these and 
various other respects. And in the one case as in the other, 
it might be shown that the change from this first indefinite, 
incoherent and comparatively homogeneous conscious- 
ness, to a definite, coherent, and heterogeneous one, is due to 
differences in the actions of incident forces on the or- 
ganism. These brief indications of what might be 
shown, did space permit, must here suffice. Probably they 
will give adequate clue to an argument by which each reader 
may satisfy himself that the course of mental evolution 
offers no exception to the general law. In further aid of 
such an argument, I will here add an illustration that is 
comprehensible apart from the process of mental evolution 
as a whole. 

It has been remarked (I am told by Coleridge, though I 
have been unable to find the passage) that with the advance 
of language, words which were originally alike in their 
meanings acquire unlike meanings — a change which he 
expresses by the formidable word " desynonymization." 
Among indigenous words this loss of equivalence cannot 
be clearly shown ; because in them the divergencies of mean- 
ing began before the dawn of literature. But among words 
that have been coined, or adopted from other languages, 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 433 

since the writing of books commenced, it is demonstrable. 
In the old divines, miscreant is used in its etymological 
sense of unbeliever ; but in modern speech it has entirely 
lost this sense. Similarly with evil-doer and malefactor : 
exactly synonymous as these are by derivation, they are no 
longer synonymous by usage : by a malefactor we now 
understand a convicted criminal, which is far from being 
the acceptation of evil-doer. The verb produce, bears in 
Euclid its primary meaning — to prolong, or draw out • but 
the now largely developed meanings oi produce have little in 
common with the meanings of prolong, or draw out. In the 
Church of England liturgy, an odd effect results from the oc- 
currence of prevent in its original sense — to come before, in- 
stead of its modern specialized sense — to come before with the 
effect of arresting. But the most conclusive cases are those 
in which the contrasted words consist of the same parts differ- 
ently combined ; as in go under and undergo. We go under 
a tree, and we undergo a pain. But though, if analytically 
considered, the meanings of these expressions would be the 
same were the words transposed, habit has so far modified 
their meanings that we could not without absurdity speak of 
undergoing a tree and going under a pain. Countless 

such instances might be brought to show that between two 
words which are originally of like force, an equilibrium 
cannot be maintained. Unless they are daily used in exact- 
ly equal degrees, in exactly similar relations (against which 
there are infinite probabilities), there necessarily arises a 
habit of associating one rather than the other with particular 
acts, or objects. Such a habit, once commenced, becomes 
confirmed; and gradually their homogeneity of meaning 
disappears. In each individual we may see the tendency 
which inevitably leads to this result. A certain vocabu- 
lary and a certain set of phrases, distinguish the speech of 
each person: each person habitually uses certain worda in 
places where Other words are habitually used by other per- 
sons; and there is a continual recurrence of favourite ex- 



434: THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

pressions. This inability to maintain a balance in the use of 
verbal symbols, which characterizes every man, character- 
izes, by consequence, aggregates of men ; and the desynony- 
mization of words is the ultimate effect. 

Should any difficulty be felt in understanding how these 
mental changes exemplify a law of physical transformations 
that are wrought by physical forces, it will disappear on con- 
templating acts of mind as nervous functions. It will be 
seen that each loss of equilibrium above instanced, is a loss of 
functional equality between some two elements of the nerv- 
ous system. And it will be seen that, as in other cases, this 
loss of functional equality is due to differences in the inci- 
dence of forces. 

§ 154. Masses of men, in common with all other masses,, 
show a like proclivity similarly caused. Small combinations 
and large societies equally manifest it ; and in the one, as in 
the other, both governmental and industrial differentiations 
are initiated by it. Let us glance at the facts under these 
two heads. 

A business partnership, balanced as the authorities of its 
members may theoretically be, practically becomes a union 
in which the authority of one partner is tacitly recognized as 
greater than that of the other or others. Though the share- 
holders have given equal powers to the directors of their 
company, inequalites of power soon arise among them; and 
usually the supremacy of some one director grows so 
marked, that his decisions determine the course which the 
board takes. Nor in associations for political, charitable, lit- 
erary, or other purposes, do we fail to find a like process of 
division into dominant and subordinate parties; each having 
its leader, its members of less influence, and its mass of un- 
infmential members. These minor instances in which unor- 
ganized groups of men, standing in homogeneous relations, 
may be watched gradually passing into organized groups of 
men standing in heterogeneous relations, give us the key to 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 435 

social inequalities. Barbarous and civilized communities 
are alike characterized by separation into classes, as well 
as by separation of each class into more important and less 
important units; and this structure is manifestly the grad- 
ually-consolidated result of a process like that daily exem- 
plified in trading and other combinations. So long as 
men are constituted to act on one another, either by physi- 
cal force or by force of character, the struggles for suprem- 
acy must finally be decided in favour of some one ; and the 
difference once commenced must tend to become ever more 
marked. Its unstable equilibrium being destroyed, the 
uniform must gravitate with increasing rapidity into the 
multiform. And so supremacy and subordination must es- 
tablish themselves, as we see they do, throughout the whole 
structure of a society, from the great class-divisions pervad- 
ing its entire body, down to village cliques, and even down 
to every posse of school-boys. Probably it will 

be objected that such changes result, not from the homoge- 
neity of the original aggregations, but from their non-homo- 
geneity — from certain slight differences existing among 
their units at the outset. This is doubtless the proximate 
cause. In strictness, such changes must be regarded as 
transformations of the relatively homogeneous into the rela- 
tively heterogeneous. But it is abundantly clear that an 
aggregation of men, absolutely alike in their endowments, 
would eventually undergo a similar transformation. For in 
the absence of perfect uniformity in the lives severally led 
by them — in their occupations, physical conditions, domestic 
relations, and trains of thought and feeling — there must 
arise differences among them; and these must finally initiate 
social differentiations. Even inequalities of health caused 
by accidents, must, by entailing inequalities of physical and 
mental power, disturb the exact balance of mutual influ- 
ences among the units; and the balance once disturbed, 
must inevitably be lost. Whence, indeed, besides seeing 
that a body of men absolutely homogeneous in their gov- 



436 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

ernmental relations, must, like all other homogeneous bod- 
ies, become heterogeneous, we also see that it must do this 
from the same ultimate cause — unequal exposure of its 
parts to incident forces. 

* The first industrial divisions of societies are much more 
obviously due to unlikenesses of external circumstances. 
Such divisions are absent until such unlikenesses are estab- 
lished. Nomadic tribes do not permanently expose any 
groups of their members to special local conditions; nor does 
a stationary tribe, when occupying only a small area, main- 
tain from generation to generation marked contrasts in the 
local conditions of its members ; and in such tribes there are 
no decided economical differentiations. But a community 
which, growing populous, has overspread a large tract, and 
has become so far settled that its members live and die in 
their respective districts, keeps its several sections in differ- 
ent physical circumstances ; and then they no longer remain 
alike in their occupations. Those who live dispersed con- 
tinue to hunt or cultivate the earth ; those who spread to the 
sea-shore fall into maritime occupations; while the inhabit- 
ants of some spot chosen, perhaps for its centrality, as one of 
periodical assemblage, become traders, and a town springs 
up. Each of these classes undergoes a modification of char- 
acter consequent on its function, and better fitting it to its 
function. Later in the process of social evolution these local 
adaptations are greatly multiplied. A result of differences in 
soil and climate, is that the rural inhabitants in different 
parts of the kingdom have their occupations partially spe- 
cialized; and become respectively distinguished as chiefly 
producing cattle, or sheep, or wheat, or oats, or hops, or 
cyder. People living where coal-fields are discovered are 
transformed into colliers; Cornishmen take to mining be- 
cause Cornwall is metalliferous; and the iron-manufacture 
is the dominant industry where iron-stone is plentiful. 
Liverpool has assumed the office of importing cotton, in con- 
sequence of its proximity to the district where cotton goods 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 437 

are made; and for analogous reasons, Hull lias become the 
chief port at which foreign wools are brought in. Even in 
the establishment of breweries, of dye-works, of slate-quar- 
ries, of brick-yards, we may see the same truth. So that both 
in general and in detail, the specializations of the social or- 
ganism which characterize separate districts, primarily de- 
pend on local circumstances. Those divisions of labour 
which under another aspect were interpreted as due to the 
setting up of motion in the directions of least resistance 
(§ 80), are here interpreted as due to differences in the in- 
cident forces; and the two interpretations are quite consist- 
ent with each other. For that which in each case deter- 
mines the direction of least resistance, is the distribution of 
the forces to be overcome; and hence unlikenesses of distri- 
bution in separate localities, entails unlikenesses in the 
course of human action in those localities — entails indus- 
trial differentiations. 

§ 155. It has still to be shown that this general truth is 
demonstrable dj)riori. We have to prove specifically that 
the instability of the homogeneous is a corollary from the 
persistence of force. Already this has been tacitly implied 
by assigning unlikeness in the exposure of its parts to sur- 
rounding agencies, as the reason why a uniform mass loses 
its uniformity. But here it will be proper to expand this 
tacit implication into definite proof. 

On striking a mass of matter with such force as either to 
indent it or make it fly to pieces, we see both that the blow 
affects differently its different parts, and that the differences 
are consequent on the unlike relations of its parts to the 
force impressed. The part with which the striking body 
comes in contact, receiving the whole of the communicated 
momentum, is driven in towards the centre of the mass. 
It thus compresses and tends to displace the more centrally 
situated portions of the mass. These, however, cannot be 
compressed or thrust out of their places without pressing on 



438 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

all surrounding portions. And when the blow is violent 
enough to fracture the mass, we see, in the radial dispersion 
of its fragments, that the original momentum, in being dis- 
tributed throughout it, has been divided into numerous 
minor momenta, unlike in their directions. We see that 
these directions are determined by the positions of the parts 
with respect to each other, and with respect to the point of 
impact. We see that the parts are differently affected by 
the disruptive force, because they are differently related to 
it in their directions and attachments — that the effects being 
the joint products of the cause and the conditions, cannot be 
alike in parts which are differently conditioned. A 

body on which radiant heat is falling, exemplifies this truth 
still more clearly. Taking the simplest case (that of a 
sphere) we see that while the part nearest to the radiating 
centre receives the rays at right angles, the rays strike the 
other parts of the exposed side at all angles from 90° down 
to 0°. Again, the molecular vibrations propagated through 
the mass from the surface which receives the heat, must pro- 
ceed inwards at angles differing for each point. Further, 
the interior parts of the sphere affected by the vibrations 
proceeding from all points of the heated side, must be dis- 
similarly affected in proportion as their positions are dis- 
similar. So that whether they be on the recipient area, in 
the middle, or at the remote side, the constituent atoms are 
all thrown into states of vibration more or less unlike each 
other. 

But now, what is the ultimate meaning of the conclusion 
that a uniform force produces different changes throughout 
a uniform mass, because the parts of the mass stand in differ- 
ent relations to the force? Fully to understand this, we 
must contemplate each part as simultaneously subject to 
other forces — those of gravitation, of cohesion, of molecular 
motion, &c. The effect wrought by an additional force, 
must be a resultant of it and the forces already in action. If 
the forces already in action on two parts of any aggre- 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 439 

gate, are different in their directions, the effects produced on 
these two parts by like forces must be different in their di- 
rections. Why must they be different ? They must be dif- 
ferent because such unlikeness as exists between the two 
sets of factors, is made by the presence in the one of some 
specially-directed force that is not present in the other ; and 
that this force will produce an effect, rendering the total re- 
sult in the one case unlike that in the other, is a necessary 
corollary from the persistence of force. Still more 

manifest does it become that the dissimilarly-placed parts of 
any aggregate must be dissimilarly modified by an incident 
force, when we remember that the quantities of the incident 
force to which they are severally subject, are not equal, as 
above supposed; but are nearly always very unequal. The 
outer parts of masses are usually alone exposed to chemical 
actions ; and not only are their inner parts shielded from the 
affinities of external elements, but such affinities are brought 
to bear unequally on their surfaces; since chemical action 
sets up currents through the medium in which it takes place, 
and so brings to the various parts of the surface unequal 
quantities of the active agent. Again, the amounts of any 
external radiant force which the different parts of an aggre- 
gate receive, are widely contrasted: we have the contrast 
between the quantity falling on the side next the radiat- 
ing centre, and the quantity, or rather no quantity, falling 
on the opposite side; we have contrasts in the quantities re- 
ceived by differently-placed areas on the exposed side; and 
we have endless contrasts between the quantities received 
by the various parts of the interior. Similarly when me- 
chanical force is expended on any aggregate, either by col- 
lision, continuous pressure, or tension, the amounts of strain 
distributed throughout the mass are manifestly unlike for 
unlike positions. But to say the different parts of an aggre- 
gate receive different quantities of any incident force, is to 
say that their states are modified by it in different degrees 
— is to say that if they were before homogeneous in their 



410 THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 

relations they must be rendered to a proportionate extent 
heterogeneous; since, force being persistent, the different 
quantities of it falling on the different parts, must 
work in them different quantities of effect — different 
changes. Yet one more kindred deduction is re- 

quired to complete the argument. We may, by parallel 
reasoning, reach the conclusion that, even apart from the 
action of any external force, the equilibrium of a homo- 
geneous aggregate must be destroyed by the unequal ac- 
tions of its parts on each other. That mutual influence 
which produces aggregation (not to mention other mutual 
influences) must work different effects on the different parts ; 
since they are severally exposed to it in unlike amounts and 
directions. This will be clearly seen on remembering that 
the portions of which the whole is made up, may be sever- 
ally regarded as minor wholes; that on each of these minor 
wholes, the action of the entire aggregate then becomes 
an external incident force; that such external incident 
force must, as above shown, work unlike changes in the 
parts of any such minor whole ; and that if the minor wholes 
are severally thus rendered heterogeneous, the entire aggre- 
gate is rendered heterogeneous. 

The instability of the homogeneous is thus deducible 
from that primordial truth which underlies our intelligence. 
One stable homogeneity only, is hypothetically possible. If 
centres of force, absolutely uniform in their powers, were 
diffused with absolute uniformity through unlimited space, 
they would remain in equilibrium. This however, though a 
verbally intelligible supposition, is one that cannot be repre- 
sented in thought; since unlimited space is inconceivable. 
But all finite forms of the homogeneous — all forms of it 
which we can know or conceive, must inevitably lapse into 
heterogeneity. In three several ways does the persistence 
of force necessitate this. Setting external agencies aside, 
each unit of a homogeneous whole must be differently affect- 
ed from any of the rest by the aggregate action of the rest 



THE INSTABILITY OF THE HOMOGENEOUS. 441 

upon it. The resultant force exercised by the aggregate on 
each unit, being in no two cases alike in both amount and 
direction, and usually not in either, any incident force, even 
if uniform in amount and direction, cannot produce like ef- 
fects on the units. And the various positions of the parts in 
relation to any incident force, preventing them from receiv- 
ing it in uniform amounts and directions, a further differ- 
ence in the effects wrought on them is inevitably produced. 
One further remark is needed. To the conclusion that 
the changes with which Evolution commences, are thus ne- 
cessitated, remains to be added the conclusion that these 
changes must continue. The absolutely homogeneous must 
lose its equilibrium; and the relatively homogeneous must 
lapse into the relatively less homogeneous. That which 
is true of any total mass, is true of the parts into which 
it segregates. The uniformity of each such part must as 
inevitably be lost in multiformity, as was that of the orig- 
inal whole; and for like reasons. And thus the continued 
changes which characterize Evolution, in so far as they are 
constituted by the lapse of the homogeneous into the hetero- 
geneous, and of the less heterogeneous into the more hetero- 
geneous, are necessary consequences of the persistence of 
force. 



30 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

§ 156. To the cause of increasing complexity set forth 
in the last chapter, we have in this chapter to add another. 
Though secondary in order of time, it is scarcely secondary 
in order of importance. Even in the absence of the cause 
already assigned, it would necessitate a change from the 
homogeneous to the heterogeneous; and joined with it, it 
makes this change both more rapid and more involved. To 
come in sight of it, we have but to pursue a step further, 
that conflict between force and matter already delineated. 
Let us do this. 

When a uniform aggregate is subject to a uniform force, 
we have seen that its constituents, being differently condi- 
tioned, are differently modified. But while we have con- 
templated the various parts of the aggregate as thus under- 
going unlike changes, we have not yet contemplated the un- 
like changes simultaneously produced on the various parts 
of the incident force. These must be as numerous and im- 
portant as the others. Action and re-action being equal 
and opposite, it follows that in differentiating the parts on 
which it falls in unlike ways, the incident force must itself 
be correspondingly differentiated. Instead of being as be- 
fore, a uniform force, it must thereafter be a multiform 
force — a group of dissimilar forces. A few illustrations will 
make this truth manifest. 

A single force is divided by conflict with matter into 

442 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 443 

forces that widely diverge. In the case lately cited, of a 
body shattered by violent collision, besides the change of the 
homogeneous mass into a heterogeneous group of scattered 
fragments, there is a change of the homogeneous mo- 
mentum into a group of momenta, heterogeneous in both 
amounts and directions. Similarly with the forces we know 
as light and heat. After the dispersion of these by a radiat- 
ing body towards all points, they are re-dispersed towards all 
points by the bodies on which they fall. Of the Sun's rays, 
issuing from him on every side, some few strike the Moon. 
These being reflected at all angles from the Moon's sur- 
face, some few of them strike the Earth. By a like 
process the few which reach the Earth are again diffused, 
through surrounding space. And on each occasion, such 
portions of the rays as are absorbed instead of reflected, 
undergo refractions that equally destroy their parallel- 
ism. More than this is true. By conflict with 
matter, a uniform force is in part changed into forces 
differing in their directions; and in part it is changed into 
forces differing in their kinds. When one body is struck 
against another, that which we usually regard as the effect, 
is a change of position or motion in one or both bodies. But 
a moment's thought shows that this is a very incomplete 
view of the matter. Besides the visible mechanical result, 
sound is produced; or, to speak accurately, a vibration in 
one or both 1m. dies, and in the surrounding air: and under 
some circumstances we call this the effect. Moreover, the 
air has not -imply been made to vibrate, but has had currents 
raised in it by the transit of the bodies. Further, if there is 
not that great structural change which wo call fracture, 
there i- a disarrangement of the particles of the two bodies 
around their point of collision; amounting in. some case- to 
a visible condensation. Yet more, this condensation is ac- 
companied by disengagement of heat. In some cases a 

spark — that is, light- results, from the incandescence of a 

portion struck oil'; and occasionally tlii< Incandescence i£ as- 



444: THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

sociated with chemical combination. Thus, by the original 
mechanical force expended in the collision, at least five, and 
often more, different kinds of forces have been produced. 
Take, again, the lighting of a candle. Primarily, this is a 
chemical change consequent on a rise of temperature. The 
process of combination having once been set going by ex- 
traneous heat, there is a continued formation of carbonic 
acid, water, &c. — in itself a result more complex than the 
extraneous heat that first caused it. But along with this 
process of combination there is a production of heat ; there is 
a production of light; there is an ascending column of hot 
gases generated; there are currents established in the sur- 
rounding air. Nor does the decomposition of one force into 
many forces end here. Each of the several changes worked 
becomes the parent of further changes. The carbonic acid 
formed, will by and by combine with some base; or under 
the influence of sunshine give up its carbon to the leaf of a 
plant. The water will modify the hygrometric state of the 
air around ; or, if the current of hot gases containing it come 
against a cold body, will be condensed: altering the tempera- 
ture, and perhaps the chemical state, of the surface it covers. 
The heat given out melts the subjacent tallow, and expands 
whatever it warms. The light, falling on various sub- 
stances, calls forth from them reactions by which it is modi- 
fied; and so divers colours are produced. Similarly even 
with these secondary actions, which may be traced out into 
ever-multiplying ramifications, until they become too mi- 
nute to be appreciated. Universally, then, the 
effect is more complex than the cause. Whether the aggre- 
gate on which it falls be homogeneous or otherwise, an inci- 
dent force is transformed by the conflict into a number of 
forces that differ in their amounts, or directions, or kinds ; or 
in all these respects. And of this group of variously -modi- 
fied forces, each ultimately undergoes a like transfor- 
mation. 

Let us now mark how the process of evolution is fur- 



TEE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 445 

thered by this multiplication of effects. An incident force 
decomposed by the reactions of a body into a group of un- 
like forces — a uniform force thus reduced to a multiform 
force — becomes the cause of a secondary increase of multi- 
formity in the body which decomposes it. In the last chap- 
ter we saw that the several parts of an aggregate are differ- 
ently modified by any incident force. It has just been 
shown that by the reactions of the differently modified parts, 
the incident force itself must be divided into differently 
modified parts. Here it remains to point out that each dif- 
ferentiated division of the aggregate, thus becomes a centre 
from which a differentiated division of the original force is 
again diffused. And since unlike forces must produce 
unlike results, each of these differentiated forces must 
produce, throughout the aggregate, a further series of differ- 
entiations. This secondary cause of the change 
from homogeneity to heterogeneity, obviously becomes 
more potent in proportion as the heterogeneity increases. 
When the parts into which any evolving whole has segre- 
gated itself, have diverged widely in nature, they will neces- 
sarily react very diversely on any incident force — they will 
divide an incident force into so many strongly contrasted 
groups of forces. And each of them becoming the centre 
of a quite distinct set of influences, must add to the num- 
ber of distinct secondary changes wrought throughout the 
aggregate. Yet another corollary must be added. 
The number of unlike parts of which an aggregate consists, 
as well as the degree of their unlikeness, is an important 
factor in the process. Every additional specialized division 
is an additional centre of specialized forces. If a uniform 
whole, in being itself made multiform by an incident force, 
make- the incident force multiform; if a whole consisting of 
two unlike sections, divides an incident \\>vrr into two un- 
like groups of multiform forces: it is clear thai each new 
unlike section mud be a further source of complication 
among the force- at work throughout the mass — a further 



446 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

source of heterogeneity. The multiplication of effects must 
proceed in geometrical progression. Each stage of evolu- 
tion must initiate a higher stage. 

§ 157. The force of aggregation acting on irregular 
masses of rare matter, diffused through a resisting medium, 
will not cause such masses to move in straight lines to their 
common centre of gravity; but, as before said, each will 
take a curvilinear path, directed to one or other side of the 
centre of gravity. All of them being differently condi- 
tioned, gravitation will impress on each a motion differing 
in direction, in velocity, and in the degree of its curvature 
— uniform aggregative force will be differentiated into 
multiform momenta. The process thus commenced, must 
go on till it produces a single mass of nebulous matter ; and 
these independent curvilinear motions must result in a 
movement of this mass round its axis: a simultaneous con- 
densation and rotation in which we see how two effects of the 
aggregative force, at first but slightly divergent, become at 
last widely differentiated. A gradual increase of oblateness 
in this revolving spheroid, must take place through the joint 
action of these two forces, as the bulk diminishes and the ro- 
tation grows more rapid ; and this we may set down as a third 
effect. The genesis of heat, which must accompany aug- 
mentation of density, is a consequence of yet another order 
— a consequence by no means simple; since the various 
parts of the mass, being variously condensed, must be vari- 
ously heated. Acting throughout a gaseous spheroid, of 
which the parts are unlike in their temperatures, the forces 
of aggregation and rotation must work a further series of 
changes : they must set up circulating currents, both general 
and local. At a later stage light as well as heat will be gen- 
erated. Thus without dwelling on the likelihood of chemi- 
cal combinations and electric disturbances, it is sufficiently 
manifest that, supposing matter to have originally existed in 
a diffused state, the once uniform force which caused its 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 447 

aggregation, must have become gradually divided into dif- 
ferent forces: and that each further stage of complication 
in the resulting aggregate, must have initiated further sub- 
divisions of this force — a further multiplication of effects, 
increasing the previous heterogeneity. 

This section of the argument may however be adequate- 
ly sustained, without having recourse to any such hypotheti- 
cal illustrations as the foregoing. The astronomical attri- 
butes of the Earth, will even alone suffice our purpose. 
Consider first the effects of its momentum round its axis. 
There is the oblateness of its form; there is the alternation 
of day and night; there are certain constant marine cur- 
rents; and there are certain constant aerial currents. Con- 
sider next the secondary series of consequences due to the 
divergence of the Earth's plane of rotation from the plane 
of its orbit. The many differences of the seasons, both 
simultaneous and successive, which pervade its surface, are 
thus caused. External attraction acting on this rotating 
oblate spheroid with inclined axis, produces the motion 
called nutation, and that slower and larger one from which 
follows the precession of the equinoxes, with its several se- 
quences. And then by this same force are generated the 
tides, aqueous and atmospheric. 

Perhaps, however, the simplest way of showing the mul- 
tiplication of effects among phenomena of this order, will be 
to set down the influences of any member of the Solar Sys- 
tem on the rest. A planet directly produces in neighbour- 
ing planets certain appreciable perturbations, complicating 
those otherwise produced in them; and in the remoter plan- 
ets it directly produces certain less visible perturbations. 
Here is a first -eric- of effects. But each of the perturbed 
planets is itself a source of perturbations — each directly 
affects all the others. Bence, planet A having drawn planet 
B out of the position it would Lave occupied in A/s absence, 
the perturbations which B causes are differenl from what 
they would else have been; and similarly with C, T), E, &c. 



448 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS, 

Here then is a secondary series of effects : far more numerous 
though far smaller in their amounts. As these indirect per- 
turbations must to some extent modify the movements of 
each planet, there results from them a tertiary series; and 
so on continually. Thus the force exercised by any planet 
works a different effect on each of the rest; this different 
effect is from each as a centre partially broken up into 
minor different effects on the rest; and so on in ever multi- 
plying and diminishing waves throughout the entire system. 

§ 158. If the Earth was formed by the concentration of 
diffused matter, it must at first have been incandescent ; and 
whether the nebular hypothesis be accepted or not, this orig- 
inal incandescence of the Earth must now be regarded as in- 
ductively established — Or, if not established, at least ren- 
dered so probable that it is a generally admitted geological 
doctrine. Several results of the gradual cooling of the 
Earth — as the formation of a crust, the solidification of sub- 
limed elements, the precipitation of water, &c, have been 
already noticed — and I here again refer to them merely to 
point out that they are simultaneous effects of the one cause, 
diminishing heat. Let us now, however, observe the multi- 
plied changes afterwards arising from the continuance of 
this one cause. The Earth, falling in temperature, 

must contract. Hence the solid crust at any time existing, 
is presently too large for the shrinking nucleus; and being 
unable to support itself, inevitably follows the nucleus. But 
a spheroid envelope cannot sink down into contact with a 
smaller internal spheroid, without disruption: it will run 
into wrinkles, as the rind of an apple does when the bulk 
of its interior decreases from evaporation. As the cooling 
progresses and the envelope thickens, the ridges conse- 
quent on these contractions must become greater; rising 
ultimately into hills and mountains; and the later systems 
of mountains thus produced must not only be higher, as we 
find them to be, but they must be longer, as we also find 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 449 

them to be. Thus, leaving out of view other modifying 
forces, we see what immense heterogeneity of surface arises 
from the one cause, loss of heat — a heterogeneity which the 
telescope shows us to be paralleled on the Moon, where aque- 
ous and atmospheric agencies have been absent. But 
we have yet to notice another kind of heterogeneity of 
surface, similarly and simultaneously caused. While the 
Earth's crust was still thin, the ridges produced by its con- 
traction must not only have been small, but the tracts be- 
tween them must have rested with comparative smoothness 
on the subjacent liquid spheroid; and the water in those arc- 
tic and antarctic regions where it first condensed, must have 
been evenly distributed. But as fast as the crust grew 
thicker and gained corresponding strength, the lines of frac- 
ture from time to time caused in it, necessarily occurred at 
greater distances apart; the intermediate surfaces followed 
the contracting nucleus with less uniformity ; and there con- 
sequently resulted larger areas of land and water. If any 
one, after wrapping an orange in wet tissue paper, and ob- 
serving both how small are the wrinkles and how evenly 
the intervening spaces lie on the surface of the orange, will 
then wrap it in thick cartridge-paper, and note both the 
greater height of the ridges and the larger spaces through- 
out which the paper does not touch the orange, he will real- 
ize the fact, that as the Earth's solid envelope thickened, the 
areas of elevation and depression became greater. In place 
of islands more or less homogeneously scattered over an 
all-embracing sea, there must have gradually arisen hetero- 
geneous arrangements of continent and ocean, such as we 
now know. This double change in the extent and 
in the elevation of the lands, involved yet another species of 
heterogeneity — that of coast-line. A tolerably even sur- 
face raised out of the ocean will have a simple, regular sea- 
margin; but a surface varied by table-lands and intersected 
by mountain-chains, will, when raised out of the ocean, have 
an outline extremely irregular, alike in its leading features 



450 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

and in its details. Thus endless is the accumulation of 
geological and geographical results slowly brought about 
by this one cause — the escape of the Earth's primitive heat. 
When we pass from the agency which geologists term 
igneous, to aqueous and atmospheric agencies, we see a like 
ever-growing complication of effects. The denuding actions 
of air and water have, from the beginning, been modifying 
every exposed surface : everywhere working many different 
changes. As already shown (§69) the original source of 
those gaseous and fluid motions which effect denudation, is 
the solar heat. The transformation of this into various 
modes of force, according to the nature and condition of the 
matter on which it falls, is the first stage of complication. 
The sun's rays, striking at all angles a sphere, that from mo- 
ment to moment presents and withdraws different parts of 
its surface, and each of them for a different time daily 
throughout the year, would produce a considerable variety 
of changes even were the sphere uniform. But falling as 
they do on a sphere surrounded by an atmosphere in some 
parts of which wide areas of cloud are suspended, and which 
here unveils vast tracts of sea, there of level land, there of 
mountains, there of snow and ice, they initiate in its several 
parts countless different movements. Currents of air of all 
sizes, directions, velocities, and temperatures, are set up; as 
are also marine currents similarly contrasted in their charac- 
ters. In this region the surface -is giving off water in the 
state of vapour; in that, dew is being precipitated; and in 
the other rain is descending — differences that arise from the 
ever-changing ratio between the absorption and radiation of 
heat in each place. At one hour, a rapid fall in temperature 
leads to the formation of ice, with an accompanying ex- 
pansion throughout the moist bodies frozen; while at an- 
other, a thaw unlocks the dislocated fragments of these bod- 
ies. And then, passing to a second stage of complication, 
we see that the many kinds of motion directly or indirectly 
caused by the sun's rays, severally produce results that vary 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 45I 

with the conditions. Oxidation, drought, wind, frost, rain, 
glaciers, rivers, waves, and other denuding agents effect dis- 
integrations that are determined in their amounts and quali- 
ties by local circumstances. Acting upon a tract of granite, 
such agents here work scarcely an appreciable effect; there 
cause exfoliations of the surface, and a resulting heap of 
debris and boulders; and elsewhere, after decomposing the 
feldspar into a white clay, carry away this with the accom- 
panying quartz and mica, and deposit them in separate beds, 
fluviatile and marine. When the exposed land consists of 
several unlike formations, sedimentary and igneous, changes 
proportionately more heterogeneous are wrought. The for- 
mations being disintegrate in different degrees, there fol- 
lows an increased irregularity of surface. The areas 
drained by different rivers being differently constituted, 
these rivers carry down to the sea unlike combinations of 
ingredients; and so sundry new strata of distinct composi- 
tion arise, xlnd here indeed we may see very simply illus- 
trated, the truth, that the heterogeneity of the effects in- 
creases in a geometrical progression, with the heterogeneity 
of the object acted upon. A continent of complex struc- 
ture, presenting many strata irregularly distributed, raised 
to various levels, tilted up at all angles, must, under the 
same denuding agencies, give origin to immensely multi- 
plied results: each district must be peculiarly modified; each 
river must carry down a distinct kind of detritus; each de- 
posit must be differently distributed by the entangled cur- 
rents, tidal and other, which wash the contorted shores; and 
every additional complication of surface must be the cause 
of more than one additional consequence. But not to dwell 
on these, le1 us for the fuller elucidation of this truth in 
relation to the inorganic world, consider what would present- 
ly follow from sonic extensive cosmical revolution — say the 
subsidence of Central America. The immediate result- of 
the disturbance would themselves be sufficiently complex. 
Besides the aumberless dislocations of strata, the ejections 



452 THE MULTIPLICATION OP EFFECTS. 

of igneous matter, the propagation of earthquake vibrations 
thousands of miles around, the loud explosions, and the es- 
cape of gases, there would be the rush of the Atlantic and 
Pacific Oceans to supply the vacant space, the subsequent 
recoil of enormous waves, which would traverse both these 
oceans and produce myriads of changes along their shores, 
the corresponding atmospheric waves complicated by the 
currents surrounding each volcanic vent, and the electrical 
discharges with which such disturbances are accompanied. 
But these temporary effects would be insignificant com- 
pared with the permanent ones. The complex currents of 
the Atlantic and Pacific would be altered in directions and 
amounts. The distribution of heat achieved by these cur- 
rents would be different from what it is. The arrangement 
of the isothermal lines, not only on the neighbouring con- 
tinents, but even throughout Europe, would be changed. 
The tides would flow differently from what they do now. 
There would be more or less modification of the winds in 
their periods, strengths, directions, qualities. Rain would 
fall scarcely anywhere at the same times and in the same 
quantities as at present. In short, the meteorological condi- 
tions thousands of miles off, on all sides, would be more or 
less revolutionized. In these many changes, each of which 
comprehends countless minor ones, the reader will see the 
immense heterogeneity of the results wrought out by one 
force, when that force expends itself on a previously compli- 
cated area ; and he will readily draw the corollary that from 
the beginning the complication has advanced at an increas- 
ing rate. 

§ 159. We have next to trace throughout organic evolu- 
tion, this same all-pervading principle. And here, where 
the transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogene- 
ous was first observed, the production of many changes by 
one cause is least easy to demonstrate. The development of 
a seed into a plant, or an ovum into an animal, is so gradual; 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 453 

while the forces which determine it are so involved, and at 
the same time so unobtrusive ; that it is difficult to detect the 
multiplication of effects which is elsewhere so obvious. 
Nevertheless, by indirect evidence we may establish our 
proposition ; spite of the lack of direct evidence. 

Observe, first, how numerous are the changes which any 
marked stimulus works on an adult organism — a human be- 
ing, for instance. An alarming sound or sight, besides 
impressions on the organs of sense and the nerves, may pro- 
duce a start, a scream, a distortion of the face, a trembling 
consequent on general muscular relaxation, a burst of per- 
spiration, an excited action of the heart, a rush of blood to 
the brain, followed possibly by arrest of the heart's action 
and by syncope ; and if the system be feeble, an illness with 
its long train of complicated symptoms may set in. Simi- 
larly in cases of disease. A minute portion of the small-pox 
virus introduced into the system, will, in a severe case, cause, 
during the first stage, rigors, heat of skin, accelerated pulse, 
furred tongue, loss of appetite, thirst, epigastric uneasiness, 
vomiting, headache, pains in the back and limbs, muscular 
weakness, convulsions, delirium, &c. ; in the second stage, 
cutaneous eruption, itching, tingling, sore throat, swelled 
fauces, salivation, cough, hoarseness, dyspnoea, &c. ; and in 
the third stage, cedematous inflammations, pneumonia, 
pleurisy, diarrhoea, inflammation of the brain, ophthalmia, 
erysipelas, &c. : each of which enumerated symptoms is 
itself more or less complex. Medicines, special foods, better 
air, might in like manner be instanced as producing multi- 
plied results. Now it needs only to consider that 
the many changes thus wrought by one force on an adult 
organism, must be partially paralleled in an embryo-organ- 
ism, to understand how here also the production of many 
effects by one cause is a source of increasing heterogeneity. 
The external heat and other agencies which determine tho 
first complications of the germ, will, by acting on these, super- 
induce further complications; on these still higher and more 



454 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

numerous ones; and so on continually: each, organ as it is de- 
veloped, serving, by its actions and reactions on the rest, to 
initiate new complexities. The first pulsations of the foetal 
heart must simultaneously aid the unfolding of every part. 
The growth of each tissue, by taking from the blood special 
proportions of elements, must modify the constitution of the 
blood; and so must modify the nutrition of all the other 
tissues. The distributive actions, implying as they do a cer- 
tain waste, necessitate an addition to the blood of effete 
matters, which must influence the rest of the system, and 
perhaps, as some think, initiate the formation of excretory 
organs. The nervous connections established among the 
viscera must further multiply their mutual influences. And 
so with every modification of structure — every additional 
part and every alteration in the ratios of parts. Still 

stronger becomes the proof when we call to mind the fact, 
that the same germ may be evolved into different forms ac- 
cording to circumstances. Thus, during its earlier stages, 
every embryo is sexless — becomes either male or female as 
the balance of forces acting on it determines. Again, it is 
well-known that the larva of a working-bee will develop 
into ^queen-bee, if, before a certain period, its food be 
changed to that on which the larvae of queen-bees are fed. 
Even more remarkable is the case of certain entozoa. The 
ovum of a tape-worm, getting into the intestine of one ani- 
mal, unfolds into the form of its parent ; but if carried into 
other parts of the system, or into the intestine of some 
unlike animal, it becomes one of the sac-like creatures, 
called by naturalists Cysticerci, or Coenuri, or Echinococci 
— creatures so extremely different from the tape-worm 
in aspect and structure, that only after careful investiga- 
tions have they been proved to have the same origin. 
All which instances imply that each advance in embryonic 
complication results from the action of incident forces on the 
complication previously existing. Indeed, the now 

accepted doctrine of epigenesis necessitates the conclusion 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 455 

that organic evolution proceeds after this manner. For 
since it is proved that no germ, animal or vegetal, contains 
the slightest rudiment, trace, or indication of the future or- 
ganism — since the microscope has shown us that the first 
process set up in every fertilized germ is a process of repeat- 
ed spontaneous fissions, ending in the production of a mass 
of cells, not one of which exhibits any special character; 
there seems no alternative but to conclude that the partial 
organization at any moment subsisting in a growing embryo, 
is transformed by the agencies acting on it into the succeed- 
ing phase of organization, and this into the next, until, 
through ever-increasing complexities, the ultimate form is 
reached. Thus, though the subtlety of the forces and 

the slowness of the metamorphosis, prevent us from directly 
tracing the genesis of many changes by one cause, through- 
out the successive stages which every embryo passes 
through; yet, indirectly, we have strong evidence that this 
is a source of increasing heterogeneity. We have marked 
how multitudinous are the effects which a single agency 
may generate in an adult organism; that a like multiplica- 
tion of effects must happen in the unfolding organism, we 
have inferred from sundry illustrative cases ; further, it has 
been pointed out that the ability which like germs have to 
originate unlike forms, implies that the successive transfor- 
mations result from the new changes superinduced on pre- 
vious changes; and we have seen that structureless as every 
germ originally is, the development of an organism out of it 
is otherwise incomprehensible. Doubtless we are still in 
the dark respecting those mysterious properties which make 
the germ, when subject to fit influences, undergo the special 
changes beginning this series of transformations. All here 
contended is, that given a germ possessing these mysterious 
properties, the evolution of an organism from it. depends, 
in part, on that multiplication of effects which we have seen 
to be a cause of evolution in general, so far as we have yet 
traced it. 



45 G THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

When, leaving the development of single plants and ani- 
mals, we pass to that of the Earth's flora and fauna, the 
course of the argument again becomes clear and simple. 
Though, as before admitted, the fragmentary facts Palaeon- 
tology has accumulated, do not clearly warrant us in saying 
that, in the lapse of geologic time, there have been evolved 
more heterogeneous organisms, and more heterogeneous 
assemblages of organisms; yet we shall now see that there 
must ever have been a tendency towards these results. We 
shall find that the production of many effects by one cause, 
which, as already shown, has been all along increasing 
the physical heterogeneity of the Earth, has further neces- 
sitated an increasing heterogeneity in its flora and fauna, 
individually and collectively. An illustration will make this 
dear. Suppose that by a series of upheavals, occur- 

ring, as they are now known to do, at long intervals, the East 
Indian Archipelago were to be raised into a continent, and a 
chain of mountains formed along the axis of elevation. By 
the first of these upheavals, the plants and animals inhabit- 
ing Borneo, Sumatra, New Guinea, and the rest, would be 
subjected to slightly-modified sets of conditions. The cli- 
mate in general would be altered in temperature, in humid- 
ity, and in its periodical variations; while the local differ- 
ences would be multiplied. These modifications would af- 
fect, perhaps inappreciably, the entire flora and fauna of the 
region. The change of level would produce additional modi- 
fications; varying in different species, and also in different 
members of the same species, according to their distance 
from the axis of elevation. Plants, growing only on the sea- 
shore in special localities, might become extinct. Others, 
living only in swamps of a certain humidity, would, if they 
survived at all, probably undergo visible changes of appear- 
ance. While more marked alterations would occur in some 
of the plants that spread over the lands newly raised above 
the sea. The animals and insects living on these modified 
plants, would themselves be in some degree modified by 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 457 

change of food, as well as by change of climate; and the 
modification would be more marked where, from the dwin- 
dling or disappearance of one kind of plant, an allied kind 
was eaten. In the lapse of the many generations arising be- 
fore the next upheaval, the sensible or insensible alterations 
thus produced in each species, would become organized — 
in all the races that survived there would be a more or less 
complete adaptation to the new conditions. The next up- 
heaval would superinduce further organic changes, imply- 
ing wider divergences from the primary forms; and so 
repeatedly. Xow however let it be observed that this revo- 
lution would not be a substitution of a thousand modified 
species for the thousand original species ; but in place of the 
thousand original species there would arise several thousand 
species, or varieties, or changed forms. Each species being 
distributed over an area of some extent, and tending con- 
tinually to colonize the new area exposed, its different mem- 
bers would be subject to different sets of changes. Plants 
and animals migrating towards the equator would not be 
affected in the same way with others migrating from it. 
Those which spread towards the new shores, would undergo 
changes unlike the changes undergone by those which 
spread into the mountains. Thus, each original race of or- 
ganisms would become the root from which diverged sev- 
eral races, differing more or less from it and from each 
other; and while some of these might subsequently disap- 
pear, probably more than one would survive in the next 
geologic: period: the very dispersion itself increasing the 
chances of survival. Not only would there be certain modi- 
fications thus caused by changes of physical conditions and 
food; but also in some cases other modifications caused by 
changes of babil do take place in animals; and we know 
by step, the newly-raised tracts, would eventually come in 
contact with the faunas of other islands; and sonic members 
of these other faunae would be unlike any creatures before 
seen. Herbivores meeting with new beasts of prey, would, 
81 



458 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

in some cases, be led into modes of defence or escape differ- 
ing from those previously used; and simultaneously the 
beasts of prey would modify their modes of pursuit and 
attack. We know that when circumstances demand it, such 
changes of habit do take place in animals; and we know 
that if the new habits become the dominant ones, they 
must eventually in some degree alter the organiza- 
tion. Observe now, however, a further consequence. 
There must arise not simply a tendency towards the differ- 
entiation of each race of organisms into several races; but 
also a tendency to the occasional production of a somewhat 
higher organism. Taken in the mass, these divergent varie- 
ties, which have been caused by fresh physical conditions 
and habits of life, will exhibit alterations quite indefinite in 
kind and degree ; and alterations that do not necessarily con- 
stitute an advance. Probably in most cases the modified 
type will be not appreciably more heterogeneous than the 
original one. But it must now and then occur, that some 
division of a species, falling into circumstances which give 
it rather more complex experiences, and demand actions 
somewhat more involved, will have certain of its organs 
further differentiated in proportionately small degrees — 
will become slightly more heterogeneous. Hence, there will 
from time to time arise an increased heterogeneity both of 
the Earth's flora and fauna, and of individual races included 
in them. Omitting detailed explanations, and allowing for 
the qualifications which cannot here be specified, it is suffi- 
ciently clear that geological mutations have all along tended 
to complicate the forms of life, whether regarded separately 
or collectively. That multiplication of effects which has 
been a part-cause of the transformation of the Earth's 
crust from the simple into the complex, has simultane- 
ously led to a parallel transformation of the Life upon its 
surface.* 

* Had this paragraph, first published in the Westminster Rcvicio in 1857, 
been written after the appearance of Mr. Darwin's work on The Origin of 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 459 

The deduction here drawn from the established truths of 
geology and the general laws of life, gains immensely in 
weight on finding it to be in harmony with an induction 
drawn from direct experience. Just that divergence of 
many races from one race, which we inferred must have 
been continually occurring during geologic time, we know 
to have occurred during the pre-historic and historic periods, 
in man and domestic animals. And just that multiplication 
of effects which we concluded must have been instrumental 
to the first, we see has in a great measure wrought the last. 
Single causes, as famine, pressure of population, war, have 
periodically led to further dispersions of mankind and of 
dependent creatures: each such dispersion initiating new 
modifications, new varieties of type. Whether all the 
human races be or be not derived from one stock, philology 
makes it clear that whole groups of races, now easily dis- 
tinguishable from each other, were originally one race — 
that the diffusion of one race into different climates and 
conditions of existence has produced many altered forms 
of it. Similarly with domestic animals. Though in some 
cases (as that of dogs) community of origin will perhaps 
be disputed, yet in other cases (as that of the sheep or the 
cattle of our own country) it will not be questioned that 
local differences of climate, food, and treatment, have trans- 
formed one original breed into numerous breeds, now be- 

Spcci&t, it would doubtless have been otherwise expressed. Reference would 
have boon made to the process of "natural selection," as greatly facilitating 
the differentiations dcscibed. As it is, however, I prefer to let the passage 
Stand in its original shape : partly because it seems to me that these succes- 
sive changes ol' conditions would produce divergent varieties or species, apart 
from the influence of "natural selection" (though in loss numerous ways as 
well as loss rapidly); and partly because I concoive that in the absence of 
these successive changes of conditions, "natural selection" would effect com- 
paratively little, b't tin' add that though these positions are not enunciated 
in The Origin of Specie*^ yet a common friend gives me reason to think that 
Mr. Darwin would coincide in them; if he did not indeed consider them as 
tacitly implied in his work. 



460 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

come so far distinct as to produce unstable hybrids. More- 
over through the complication of effects flowing from single 
causes, we here find, what we before inferred, not only an 
increase of general heterogeneity, but also of special het- 
erogeneity. While of the divergent divisions and subdi- 
visions of the human race, many have undergone changes 
not constituting an advance; others have become decid- 
edly more heterogeneous. The civilized European departs 
more widely from the vertebrate archetype than does the 
savage. 

§ 160. A sensation does not expend itself in arousing 
some single state of consciousness; but the state of con- 
sciousness aroused is made up of various represented sensa- 
tions connected by co-existence, or sequence with the pre- 
sented sensation. And that, in proportion as the grade of 
intelligence is high, the number of ideas suggested is great, 
may be readily inferred. Let us, however, look at the proof 
that here too, each change is the parent of many changes; 
and that the multiplication increases in proportion as the 
area affected is complex. 

Were some hitherto unknown bird, driven say by stress 
of weather from the remote north, to make its appearance on 
our shores, it would excite no speculation in the sheep or cat- 
tle amid which it alighted: a perception of it as a creature 
like those constantly flying about, would be the sole inter- 
ruption of that dull current of consciousness which accom- 
panies grazing and rumination. The cow-herd, by whom we 
may suppose the exhausted bird to be presently caught, 
would probably gaze at it with some slight curiosity, as being 
unlike any he had before seen — would note its most con- 
spicuous markings, and vaguely ponder on the questions, 
where it came from, and how it came. The village bird- 
stuffer would have suggested to him by the sight of it, sun- 
dry forms to which it bore a little resemblance; would re- 
ceive from it more numerous and more specific impressions 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 461 

respecting structure and plumage; would be reminded of 
various instances of birds brought by storms from foreign 
parts — would tell who found them, who stuffed them, who 
bought them. Supposing the unknown bird taken to a natu- 
ralist of the old school, interested only in externals, (one of 
those described by the late Edward Forbes, as examining 
animals as though they were merely skins filled with straw,) 
it would excite in him a more involved series of mental 
changes: there would be an elaborate examination of the 
feathers, a noting of all their technical distinctions, with a 
reduction of these perceptions to certain equivalent written 
symbols; reasons for referring the enw form to a particular 
family, order, and genus would be sought out and written 
down; communications with the secretary of some society, 
or editor of some journal, would follow; and probably 
there would be not a few thoughts about the addition of 
the ii to the describer's name, to form the name of the 
species. Lastly, in the mind of a comparative anatomist, 
such a new species, should it happen to have any marked in- 
ternal peculiarity, might produce additional sets of changes 
— might very possibly suggest modified views respecting 
the relationships of the division to which it belonged; or, 
perhaps, alter his conceptions of the homologies and devel- 
opments of certain organs; and the conclusions drawn might 
not improbably enter as elements into still wider inquiries 
concerning the origin of organic forms. 

From ideas let us turn to emotions. In a young child, a 
father's anger produces little else than vague fear — a dis- 
agreeable Bense of impending evil, taking various shapes of 
physical suffering or deprivation of pleasures. In elder chil- 
dren, the same harsh words will arouse additional feelings: 
sometimes a sense of shame, of penitence, or of sorrow for 
having offended; ;it other times, a sense of injustice, and a 
consequent anger. In the wife, yet ;i further range <»f feel- 
ings may come into existence perhaps wounded affection, 
perhaps self-pity for ill-usage, perhaps contempt for ground- 



462 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

less irritability, perhaps sympathy for some suffering which 
the irritability indicates, perhaps anxiety about an unknown 
misfortune which she thinks has produced it. Nor are we 
without evidence that among adults, the like differences of 
development are accompanied by like differences in the 
number of emotions that are aroused, in combination or 
rapid succession — the lower natures being characterized 
by that impulsiveness which results from the uncontrolled 
action of a few feelings ; and the higher natures being char- 
acterized by the simultaneous action of many secondary feel- 
ings, modifying those first awakened. 

Possibly it will be objected that the illustrations here 
given, are drawn from the functional changes of the nerv- 
ous system, not from its structural changes; and that what 
is proved among the first, does not necessarily hold among 
the last. This must be admitted. Those, however, who rec- 
ognize the truth that the structural changes are the slowly 
accumulated results of the functional changes, will readily 
draw the corollary, that a part-cause of the evolution of the 
nervous system, as of other evolution, is this multiplication 
of effects which becomes ever greater as the development 
becomes higher. 

§ 161. If the advance of Man towards greater hetero- 
geneity in both body and mind, is in part traceable to the 
production of many effects by one cause, still more clearly 
may the advance of Society towards greater heterogeneity 
be so explained. Consider the growth of an industrial or- 
ganization. When, as must occasionally happen, some in- 
dividual of a tribe displays unusual aptitude for making an 
article of general use (a weapon, for instance) which was 
before made by each man for himself, there arises a tend- 
ency towards the differentiation of that individual into a 
maker of weapons. His companions (warriors and hunters 
all of them) severally wish to have the best weapons that 
can be made; and are therefore certain to offer strong in- 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 4C3 

chicements to this skilled individual to make weapons for 
them. He, on the other hand, having both an unusual 
faculty, and an unusual liking, for making weapons (the 
capacity and the desire for any occupation being commonly 
associated), is predisposed to fulfil these commissions on the 
offer of adequate rewards: especially as his love of distinc- 
tion is also gratified. This first specialization of function, 
once commenced, tends ever to become more decided. On 
the side of the weapon-maker, continued practice gives 
increased skill — increased superiority to his products. 
On the side of his clients, cessation of practice en- 
tails decreased skill. Thus the influences that deter- 
mine this division of labour grow stronger in both ways: 
this social movement tends ever to become more decided in 
the direction in which it was first set up; and the incipient 
heterogeneity is, on the average of cases, likely to become 
permanent for that generation, if no longer. Such a 

process, besides differentiating the social mass into two parts, 
the one monopolizing, or almost monopolizing, the perform- 
ance of a certain function, and the other having lost the 
habit, and in some measure the power, of performing that 
function, has a tendency to initiate other differentiations. 
The advance described implies the introduction of barter: 
the maker of weapons has, on each occasion, to be paid in 
such other articles as he agrees to take in exchange. JSTow 
he will not habitually take in exchange one kind of article, 
but many kinds. He does not want mats only, or skins, 
or fishing-gear; but he wants all these; and on each occa- 
sion will bargain for the particular things he most needs. 
What follows? If among the members of the tribe there 
exist any slight differences of skill in the manufacture of 
these various things, as there are almost sure to do, the 
weapon-maker will hike from each one the thing which that 
one excels in making: he will exchange for mats with him 
whose mats are superior, and will bargain for the fishing- 
gear of whoever has the best. But he who has bartered away 



^Gi THE MULTIPLICATION OP EFFECTS. 

his mats or his fishing-gear, must make other mats or fish- 
ing-gear for himself ; and in so doing must, in some degree, 
further develop his aptitude. Thus it results that the small 
specialities of faculty possessed by various members of the 
tribe will tend to grow more decided. If such transactions 
are from time to time repeated, these specializations may 
become appreciable. And whether or not there ensue dis- 
tinct differentiations of other individuals into makers of 
particular articles, it is clear that incipient differentiations 
take place throughout the tribes the one original cause pro- 
duces not only the first dual effect, but a number of second- 
ary dual effects, like in kind but minor in degree. This 
process, of which traces may be seen among groups of 
school-boys, cannot well produce a lasting distribution of 
functions in an unsettled tribe; but where there grows up 
a fixed and multiplying community, such differentiations 
become permanent, and increase with each generation. An 
addition to the number of citizens, involving a greater de- 
mand for every commodity, intensifies the functional activ- 
ity of each specialized person or class; and this renders the 
specialization more definite where it already exists, and 
establishes it where it is but nascent. By increasing the 
pressure on the means of subsistence, a larger population 
again augments these results; since every individual is 
forced more and more to confine himself to that which he 
can do best, and by which he can gain most. And this 
industrial progress, by aiding future production, opens the 
way for further growth of population, which reacts as be- 
fore. Presently, under the same stimuli, new occu- 
pations arise. Competing workers, severally aiming to pro- 
duce improved articles, occasionally discover better processes 
or better materials. In weapons and cutting-tools, the sub- 
stitution of bronze for stone entails on him who first makes 
it, a great increase of demand — so great an increase that he 
presently finds all his time occupied in making the bronze 
for the article he sells, and is obliged to depute the fashion- 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 4G5 

ing of these articles to others; and eventually the making 
of bronze, thus gradually differentiated from a pre-existing 
occupation, becomes an occupation by itself. But now mark 
the ramified changes which follow this change. Bronze 
soon replaces stone, not only in the articles it was first used 
for, but in many others; and so affects the manufacture of 
them. Further, it affects the processes which such improved 
utensils subserve, and the resulting products — modifies 
buildings, carvings, dress, personal decorations. Yet again, 
it sets going sundry manufactures which were before impos- 
sible, from lack of a material fit for the requisite tools. And 
all these changes react on the people — increase their ma- 
nipulative skill, their intelligence, their comfort — refine 
their habits and tastes. 

It is out of the question here to follow through its succes- 
sive complications, this increasing social heterogeneity that 
results from the production of many effects by one cause. 
But leaving the intermediate phases of social development, 
let us take an illustration from its passing phase. To trace 
the effects of steam-power, in its manifold applications to 
mining, navigation, and manufactures, would carry us into 
unmanageable detail. Let us confine ourselves to the latest 
embodiment of steam-power — the locomotive engine. 
This, as the proximate cause of our railway-system, has 
changed the face of the country, the course of trade, and 
the habits of the people. Consider, first, the complicated 
sets of changes that precede the making of every railway — 
the provisional arrangements, the meetings, the registra- 
tion, the trial-section, the parliamentary survey, the litho- 
graphed plans, the book^ of reference, the local deposits and 
notices the application to Parliament, the passing Stand- 
in a-Orrlors Committee, the first, second, and third read- 
ings: each of which brief heads indicates a multiplicity of 
transactions, and the further development of sundry occu- 
pations, (as those of engineers, surveyors, lithographers, par- 
liamentary agent?, si i are-brokers.) and the creation of sun- 



466 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

dry others (as those of traffic-takers, reference-takers). Con- 
sider, next, the yet more marked changes implied in railway 
construction — the cuttings, embankings, tunnellings, diver- 
sions of roads ; the building of bridges and stations ; the lay- 
ing down of ballast, sleepers, and rails; the making of 
engines, tenders, carriages, and wagons: which processes, 
acting upon numerous trades, increase the importation of 
timber, the quarrying of stone, the manufacture of iron, the 
mining of coal, the burning of bricks; institute a variety 
of special manufactures weekly advertised in the Railway 
Times / and call into being some new classes of workers — 
drivers, stokers, cleaners, plate-layers, &c. &c. Then come 
the changes, more numerous and involved still, which rail- 
ways in action produce on the community at large. The 
organization of every business is more or less modified ; ease 
of communication makes it better to do directly what was 
before done by proxy; agencies are established where pre- 
viously they would not have paid; goods are obtained from 
remote wholesale houses instead of near retail ones; and 
commodities are used which distance once rendered inacces- 
sible. The rapidity and small cost of carriage, tend to spe- 
cialize more than ever the industries of different districts — 
to confine each manufacture to the parts in which, from local 
advantages, it can be best carried on. Economical distribu- 
tion equalizes prices, and also, on the average, lowers prices : 
thus bringing divers articles within the means of those be- 
fore unable to buy them, and so increasing their comforts 
and improving their habits. At the same time the practice 
of travelling is immensely extended. Classes who before 
could not afford it, take annual trips to the sea; visit their dis- 
tant relations ; make tours ; and so we are benefited in body, 
feelings, and intellect. The more prompt transmission of 
letters and of news produces further changes — makes the 
pulse of the nation faster. Yet more, there arises a wide 
dissemination of cheap literature through railway book- 
stalls, and of advertisements in railway carriages: both of 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 467 

them aiding ulterior progress. And the innumerable 
changes here briefly indicated are consequent on the inven- 
tion of the locomotive engine. The social organism has been 
rendered more heterogeneous, in virtue of the many new 
occupations introduced, and the many old ones further 
specialized; prices in all places have been altered; each 
trader has, more or less, modified his way of doing business ; 
and every person has been affected in his actions, thoughts, 
emotions. 

The only further fact demanding notice, is, that we here 
see more clearly than ever, that in proportion as the area 
over which any influence extends, becomes heterogeneous, 
the results are in a yet higher degree multiplied in number 
and kind. "While among the primitive tribes to whom it 
was first known, caoutchouc caused but few changes, among 
ourselves the changes have been so many and varied 
that the history of them occupies a volume. Upon the 
small, homogeneous community inhabiting one of the 
Hebrides, the electric telegraph would produce, were it used, 
scarcely any results; but in England the results it produces 
are multitudinous. 

Space permitting, the synthesis might here be pursued 
in relation to all the subtler products of social life. It 
might be shown how, in Science, an advance of one division 
presently advances other divisions — how Astronomy has 
been immensely forwarded by discoveries in Optics, while 
other optical discoveries have initiated Microscopic Anato- 
my, and greatly aided the growth of Physiology — how 
Chemistry has indirectly increased our knowledge of Elec- 
tricity, Magnetism, Biology, Geology — how Electricity has 
reacted on Chemistry and Magnetism, developed our views 
of Light and Pleat, and disclosed sundry laws of nervous ac- 
tion. In Literature the same truth might be exhibited in 
the still-multiplying forms of periodical publications that 
have descended from the first newspaper, and which have 
severally acted and reacted on other forms of literature and 



468 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

on each other; or in the bias given by each book of power to 
various subsequent books. The influence which a new 
school of Painting (as that of the pre-Raffaelites) exercises 
on other schools; the hints which all kinds of pictorial art 
are deriving from Photography ; the complex results of new 
critical doctrines ; might severally be dwelt on as displaying 
the like multiplication of effects. But it would needlessly 
tax the reader's patience to detail, in their many ramifica- 
tions, these various changes: here become so involved and 
subtle as to be followed with some difficulty. 

§ 162. After the argument which closed the last chap- 
ter, a parallel one seems here scarcely required. For sym- 
metry's sake, however, it will be proper briefly to point 
out how the multiplication of effects, like the instability 
of the homogeneous, is a corollary from the persistence of 
force. 

Things which we call different are things which react in 
different ways; and we can know them as different only by 
the differences in their reactions. When we distinguish 
bodies as hard and soft, rough and smooth, we simply mean 
that certain like muscular forces expended on them are 
followed by unlike sets of sensations — unlike reactive 
forces. Objects that are classed as red, blue, yellow, &c, 
are objects that decompose light in strongly-contrasted 
ways ; that is, we know contrasts of colour as contrasts in the 
changes produced in a uniform incident force. Manifestly, 
any two things which do not work unequal effects on con- 
sciousness, either by unequally opposing our own energies, 
or by impressing our senses with unequally modified forms 
of certain external energies, cannot be distinguished by us. 
Hence the proposition that the different parts of any whole 
must react differently on a uniform incident force, and must 
so reduce it to a group of multiform forces, is in essence a 
truism. A further step will reduce this truism to its lowest 
terms. 



THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 469 

"When, from unlikeness between the effects they produce 
on consciousness, we predicate unlikeness between two ob- 
jects, what is our warrant? and what do we mean by the 
unlikeness, objectively considered? Our warrant is the per- 
sistence of force. Some kind or amount of change has been 
wrought in us by the one, which has not been wrought by 
the other. This change we ascribe to some force exercised 
by the one which the other has not exercised. And we have 
no alternative but to do this, or to assert that the change had 
no antecedent; which is to deny the persistence of force. 
Whence it is further manifest that what we regard as the 
objective unlikeness is the presence in the one of some force, 
or set of forces, not present in the other — something in the 
kinds or amounts or directions of the constituent forces of 
the one, which those of the other do not parallel. But now 
if things or parts of things which we call different, are those 
of which the constituent forces differ in one or more re- 
spects; what must happen to any like forces, or any uniform 
force, falling on them? Such like forces, or parts of a uni- 
form force, must be differently modified. The force which 
is present in the one and not in the other, must be an element 
in the conflict — must produce its equivalent reaction; and 
must so affect the total reaction. To say otherwise is to say 
that this differential force will produce no effect; which is 
to say that force is not persistent. 

I need not develop this corollary further. It manifestly 
follows that a uniform force, falling on a uniform aggre- 
gate, must undergo dispersion ; that falling on an aggregate 
made up of unlike parts, it must undergo dispersion from 
each part, as well as qualitative differentiations; that in pro- 
portion as the parts are unlike, these qualitative differentia- 
1 ions must be marked; that in proportion to the number of 
the parts, they must be numerous; that the secondary forces 
so produced, must undergo further transformations while 
working equivalent transformations in the parte that change 
them; and similarly with the forces they generate. Thus 



470 THE MULTIPLICATION OF EFFECTS. 

the conclusions that a part-cause of Evolution is the multi- 
plication of effects; and that this increases in geometrical 
progression as the heterogeneity becomes greater; are not 
only to be established inductively, but are deducible from 
the deepest of all truths. 



CHAPTER XXL 

SEGREGATION. 

§ 163. The general interpretation of Evolution is far 
from being completed in the preceding chapters. We must 
contemplate its changes under yet another aspect, before we 
can form a definite conception of the process constituted by 
them. Though the laws already set forth, furnish a key to. 
the re-arrangement of parts which Evolution exhibits, in so 
far as it is an advance from the uniform to the multiform; 
they furnish no key to this re-arrangement in so far as it is 
an advance from the indefinite to the definite. On studying 
the actions and re-actions everywhere going on, we have 
found it to follow inevitably from a certain primordial truth, 
that the homogeneous must lapse into the heterogeneous, 
and that the heterogeneous must become more heterogene- 
ous; but we have not discovered why the differently-affected 
parts of any simple whole, become clearly marked off from 
each other, at the same time that they become unlike. Thus 
far no reason has been assigned why there should not ordi- 
narily arise a rague chaotic heterogeneity, in place of that 
orderly heterogeneity displayed in Evolution. It still re- 
mains to find out the cause of that local integration which 
accompanies Local differentiation — that gradually-completed 
segregation of like units into a group, distinctly separated 
from neighbouring groups which are severally made up of 
other kinds of units. The rationale will be conveniently in- 
troduced by a few instances in which we may watch this 
segregative process taking place. 

•171 



472 SEGREGATION. 

When towards the end of September, the trees are gain- 
ing their autumn colours, and we are hoping shortly to see a 
further change increasing still more the beauty of the land- 
scape, we are not uncommonly disappointed by the occur- 
rence of an equinoxial gale. Out of the mixed mass of 
foliage on each branch, the strong current of air carries 
away the decaying and brightly-tinted leaves, but fails to 
detach those which are still green. And while these last, 
frayed and seared by long-continued beatings against each 
other, and the twigs around them, give a sombre colour to 
the woods, the red and yellow and orange leaves are collected 
together in ditches and behind walls and in corners where 
eddies allow them to settle. That is to say, by the action of 
that uniform force which the wind exerts on both kinds, the 
dying leaves are picked out from among their still living 
companions and gathered in places by themselves. Again, 
the separation of particles of different sizes, as dust and sand 
from pebbles, may be similarly effected ; as we see on every 
road in March. And from the days of Homer downwards, 
the power of currents of air, natural and artificial, to part 
from one another units of unlike specific gravities, has 
been habitually utilized in the winnowing of chaff from 
wheat. In every river we see how the mixed ma- 

terials carried down, are separately deposited — how in rap- 
ids the bottom gives rest to nothing but boulders and peb- 
bles ; how where the current is not so strong, sand is let fall ; 
and how, in still places, there is a sediment of mud. This 
selective action of moving water, is commonly applied in the 
arts to obtain masses of particles of different degrees of fine- 
ness. Emery, for example, after being ground, is carried by 
a slow current through successive compartments ; in the first 
of which the largest grains subside; in the second of which 
the grains that reach the bottom before the water has es- 
caped, are somewhat smaller; in the third smaller still; until 
in the last there are deposited only those finest particles 
which fall so slowly through the water, that they have 



SEGREGATION. 473 

not previously been able to reach the bottom. And in 
a way that is different though equally significant, this segre- 
gative effect of water in motion, is exemplified in the carry- 
ing away of soluble from insoluble matters — an application 
of it hourly made in every laboratory. The effects of 

the uniform forces which aerial and aqueous currents exer- 
cise, are paralleled by those of uniform forces of other 
orders. Electric attraction will separate small bodies from 
large, or light bodies from heavy. By magnetism, grains of 
iron may be selected from among other grains; as by the 
Sheffield grinder, whose magnetized gauze mask filters out 
the steel-dust which his wheel gives off, from the stone-dust 
that accompanies it. And how the affinity of any agent act- 
ing differently on the components of a given body, enables 
us to take away some component and leave the rest behind, is 
shown in almost every chemical experiment. 

"What now is the general truth here variously presented? 
How are these several facts and countless similar ones, to be 
expressed in terms that embrace them all ? In each case we 
see in action a force which may be regarded as simple or uni- 
form — fluid motion in a certain direction at a certain veloc- 
ity; electric or magnetic attraction of a given amount; 
chemical affinity of a particular kind : or rather, in strictness, 
the acting force is compounded of one of these and certain 
other uniform forces, as gravitation, etc. In each case we 
have an aggregate made up of unlike units — either atoms of 
different substances combined or intimately mingled, or 
fragments of the same substance of different sizes, or other 
constituent parts that are unlike in their specific gravities, 
shapes, or other attributes. And in each case these unlike 
units, or groups of units, of which the aggregate consists, 
are, under the influence of some resultant force acting indis- 
criminately on them all, separated from each other — segre- 
gated into minor aggregates, each consisting of units ihat are 
severally like each other and unlike those of the other minor 
aggregates. Such being the common aspect of these 
82 



474 SEGREGATION". 

changes, let us look for the common interpretation of 
them. 

In the chapter on " The Instability of the Homogene- 
ous/ ' it was shown that a uniform force falling on any aggre- 
gate, produces unlike modifications in its different parts — 
turns the uniform into the multiform and the multiform 
into the more multiform. The transformation thus 
wrought, consists of either insensible or sensible changes of 
relative position among the units, or of both — either of 
those molecular re-arrangements which we call chemical, or 
of those larger transpositions which are distinguished as 
mechanical, or of the two united. Such portion of the per- 
manently effective force as reaches each different part, or 
differently-conditioned part, may be expended in modify- 
ing the mutual relations of its constituents ; or it may be ex- 
pended in moving the part to another place; or it may be 
expended partially in the first and partially in the second. 
Hence, so mucli of the permanently effective force as does 
not work the one kind of effect, must work the other kind. 
It is manifest that if of the permanently effective force 
which falls on some compound unit of an aggregate, little, 
if any, is absorbed in re-arranging the ultimate components 
of such compound unit, much or the whole, must show itself 
in motion of such compound unit to some other place in the 
aggregate ; and conversely, if little or none of this force is ab- 
sorbed in generating mechanical transposition, much or the 
whole must go to produce molecular alterations. What 

now must follow from this? In cases where none or only 
part of the force generates chemical re-distributions, what 
physical re-distributions must be generated? Parts that are 
similar to each other will be similarly acted on by the force; 
nnd will similarly react on it. Parts that are dissimilar will 
be dissimilarly acted on by the force; and will dissimilarly 
react on it. Hence the permanently effective incident 
force, when wholly or partially transformed into mechanical 
motion of the units, will produce like motions in units that 



SEGREGATION. 475 

are alike, and unlike motions in units that are unlike. If 
then, in an aggregate containing two or more orders of 
mixed units, those of the same order will be moved in the 
same way, and in a way that differs from that in which units 
of other orders are moved, the respective orders must segre- 
gate. A group of like things on which are impressed mo- 
tions that are alike in amount and direction, must be trans- 
ferred as a group to another place, and if they are mingled 
with some group of other things, on which the motions im- 
pressed are like each other, but unlike those of the first 
group in amount or direction or both, these other things must 
be transferred as a group to some other place — the mixed 
units must undergo a simultaneous selection and separation. 
In further elucidation of this process, it will be well here 
to set down a few instances in which we may see that, other 
things equal, the definiteness of the separation is in propor- 
tion to the definiteness of the difference between the units. 
Take a handful of any pounded substance, containing frag- 
ments of all sizes; and let it fall to the ground while a 
gentle breeze is blowing. The large fragments will be 
collected together on the ground almost immediately under 
the hand; somewhat smaller fragments will be carried a 
little to the leeward; still smaller ones a little further; and 
those minute particles which we call dust, will be drifted a 
long way before they reach the earth : that is, the integration 
is indefinite where the difference among the fragments is 
indefinite, though the divergence is greatest where the 
difference is greatest. If, again, the handful be made up of 
quite distinct orders of units— as pebbles, coarse sand, and 
dust — these will, under like conditions, be segregated with 
comparative definiteness : the pebbles will drop almost verti- 
cally; the sand will fall in an inclined direction, and deposit 
itself within a tolerably circumscribed space beyond the 
pebbles; while the dust will be blown almost horizontally to 
a great distance. A case in which another kind of force 
comes into play, will still better illustrate this truth. 



476 SEGREGATION. 

Through a mixed aggregate of soluble and insoluble sub- 
stances, let water slowly percolate. There will in the first 
place be a distinct parting of the substances that are the 
most widely contrasted in their relations to the acting 
forces: the soluble will be carried away; the insoluble will 
remain behind. Further, some separation, though a less 
definite one, will be effected among the soluble substances; 
since the first part of the current will remove the most solu- 
ble substances in the largest amounts, and after these have 
been all dissolved, the current will still continue to bring 
out the remaining less soluble substances. Even the undis- 
solved matters will have simultaneously undergone a certain 
segregation; for the percolating fluid will carry down the 
minute fragments from among the large ones, and will de- 
posit those of small specific gravity in one place, and those 
of great specific gravity in another. To complete 

the elucidation we must glance at the obverse fact ; namely, 
that mixed units which differ but slightly, are moved in but 
slightly-different ways by incident forces, and can therefore 
be separated only by such adjustments of the incident forces 
as allow slight differences to become appreciable factors in 
the result. This truth is made manifest by antithesis in the 
instances just given; but it may be made much more mani- 
fest by a few such instances as those which chemical analy- 
sis supplies in abundance. The parting of alcohol from 
water by distillation is a good one. Here we have atoms con- 
sisting of oxygen and hydrogen, mingled with atoms consist- 
ing of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon. The two orders of 
atoms have a considerable similarity of nature: they similar- 
ly maintain a fluid form at ordinary temperatures; they 
similarly become gaseous more and more rapidly as the tem- 
perature is raised; and they boil at points not very far apart. 
Now this comparative likeness of the atoms is accompanied 
by difficulty in segregating them. If the mixed fluid is 
unduly heated, much water distils over with the alcohol: 
it is only within a narrow range of temperature, that the one 



SEGREGATION". 477 

set of atoms are driven off rather than the others; and 
even then not a few of the others accompany them. The 
most interesting and instructive example, however, is fur- 
nished by certain phenomena of crystallization. When 
several salts that have little analogy of constitution, are 
dissolved in the same body of water, they are separated 
without much trouble, by crystallization: their respective 
units moved towards each other, as physicists suppose, by 
polar forces, segregate into crystals of their respective 
kinds. The crystals of each salt do, indeed, usually con- 
tain certain small amounts of the other salts present in the 
solution — especially when the crystallization has been rap- 
id: but from these other salts they are severally freed by 
repeated re-solutions and crystallizations. Mark now, how- 
ever, that the reverse is the case when the salts contained in 
the same body of water are chemically homologous. The 
nitrates of baryta and lead, or the sulphates of zinc, soda, 
and magnesia, unite in the same crystals ; nor will they crys- 
tallize separately if these crystals be dissolved afresh, and 
afresh crystallized, even with great care. On seeking the 
cause of this anomaly, chemists found that such salts were 
isomorphous — that their atoms, though not chemically 
identical, were identical in the proportions of acid, base, 
and water, composing them, and in their crystalline forms: 
whence it was inferred that their atoms are nearly alike 
in structure. Thus is clearly illustrated the truth, that units 
of unlike kinds are selected out and separated with a readi- 
ness proportionate to the degree of their unlikeness. In the 
first case we see that being dissimilar in their forms, but sim- 
ilar in so far as they are soluble in water of a certain tem- 
perature, the atoms segregate, though imperfectly. In the 
second case we see that the atoms, having not only the like- 
ness implied by solubility in the same menstruum, but also 
a great likeness of structure, do not segregate — are sorted 
and parted from each other only under quite special con- 
ditions, and then very incompletely. That is, the incident 



478 SEGREGATION. 

force of mutual polarity impresses unlike motions on the 
mixed units in proportion as they are unlike ; and therefore, 
in proportion as they are unlike, tends to deposit them in 
separate places. 

There is a converse cause of segregation, which it is 
needless here to treat of with equal fulness. If different 
units acted on by the same force, must be differently moved ; 
so, too, must units of the same kind be differently moved by 
different forces. Supposing some group of units forming 
part of a homogeneous aggregate, are unitedly exposed to a 
force that is unlike in amount or direction to the force acting 
on the rest of the aggregate; then this group of units will 
separate from the rest, provided that, of the force so acting 
on it, there remains any portion not dissipated in molecular 
vibrations, nor absorbed in producing molecular re-arrange- 
ments. After all that has been said above, this proposition 
needs no defence. 

Before ending our preliminary exposition, a comple- 
mentary truth must be specified; namely, that. mixed forces 
are segregated by the reaction of uniform matters, just as 
mixed matters are segregated by the action of uniform 
forces. Of this truth a complete and sufficient illustration 
is furnished by the dispersion of refracted light. A beam 
of light, made up of ethereal undulations of different orders, 
is not uniformly deflected by a homogeneous refracting 
body; but the different orders of undulations it contains, are 
deflected at different angles: the result being that these 
different orders of undulations are separated and integrated, 
and so produce what we know as the colours of the spectrum. 
A segregation of another kind occurs when rays of light 
traverse an obstructing medium. Those rays which consist 
of comparatively short undulations, are absorbed before 
those which consist of comparatively long ones; and the red 
rays, which consist of the longest undulations, alone pene- 
trate wnen the obstruction is very great. ITow, conversely, 
there is produced a separation of like forces by the reaction 



SEGREGATION. 479 

of unlike matters, is also made manifest by the phenomena 
of refraction: since adjacent and parallel beams of light, 
falling on, and passing through, unlike substances, are made 
to diverge. 

§ 164. On the assumption of their nebular origin, stars 
and planets exemplify that cause of material segregation 
last assigned — the action of unlike forces on like units. 

In a preceding chapter (§ 150) we saw that if matter 
ever existed in a diffused form, it could not continue uni- 
formly distributed, but must break up into masses. It was 
shown that in the absence of a perfect balance of mutual at- 
tractions among atoms dispersed through unlimited space, 
there must arise breaches of continuity throughout the ag- 
gregate formed by them, and a concentration of it towards 
centres of dominant attraction. Where any such breach of 
continuity occurs, and the atoms that were before adjacent 
separate from each other; they do so in consequence of a 
difference in the forces to which they are respectively sub- 
ject. The atoms on the one side of the breach are exposed 
to a certain surplus attraction in the direction in which they 
begin to move; and those on the other to a surplus attrac- 
tion in the opposite direction. That is, the adjacent groups 
of like units are exposed to unlike resultant forces; and ac- 
cordingly separate and integrate. 

The formation and detachment of a nebulous ring, illus- 
trates the same general principle. To conclude, as Laplace 
did, that the equatorial portion of a rotating nebulous 
spheroid, will, during concentration, acquire a centrifugal 
force sufficient to prevent it from following the rest of the 
contracting mass, is to conclude that such portions will 
remain behind as are in common subject to a certain differ- 
ential force. The line of division between 'the ring and 
the spheroid, must be a line inside of which the aggregative 
force is greater than the force resisting aggregation; and 
outside of which the force resisting aggregation is greater 



480 SEGREGATION. 

than tlie aggregative force. Hence the alleged process con- 
forms to the law that among like units, exposed to unlike 
forces, the similarly conditioned part from the dissimilarly 
conditioned. 

§ 165. Those geologic changes usually classed as aque- 
ous, display under numerous forms the segregation of unlike 
units by a uniform incident force. On sea-shores, the waves 
are ever sorting-out and separating the mixed materials 
against which they break. From each mass of fallen cliff, 
the rising and ebbing tide carries away all those particles 
which are so small as to remain long suspended in the 
water; and, at some distance from shore, deposits them in 
the shape of fine sediment. Large particles, sinking with 
comparative rapidity, are accumulated into beds of sand 
near low-water mark. The coarse grit and small pebbles 
collect together on the incline up which the breakers rush. 
And on the top lie the larger stones and boulders. Still 
more specific segregations may occasionally be observed. 
Flat pebbles, produced by the breaking down of laminated 
rock, are sometimes separately collected in one part of a 
shingle bank. On this shore the deposit is wholly of mud ; 
on that it is wholly of sand. Here we find a sheltered cove 
filled with small pebbles almost of one size; and there, in a 
curved bay one end of which is more exposed than the other, 
we see a progressive increase in the massiveness of the stones 
as we walk from the less exposed to the more exposed end. 
Trace the history of each geologic deposit, and we are 
quickly led down to the fact, that mixed fragments of 
matter, differing in their sizes or weights, are, when ex- 
posed to the momentum and friction of water, joined 
with the attraction of the Earth, selected from each other, 
and united into groups of comparatively like fragments. 
And we see that, other things equal, the separation 
is definite in proportion as the differences of the units are 
marked. After they have been formed, sedi- 



SEGREGATION - . 481 

mentary strata exhibit segregations of another kind. The 
flints and the nodules of iron pyrites that are found in chalk, 
as well as the silicious concretions which occasionally occur 
in limestone, can be interpreted only as aggregations of 
atoms of silex or sulphuret of iron, originally diffused al- 
most uniformly through the deposit, but gradually collected 
round certain centres, notwithstanding the solid or semi- 
solid state of the surrounding matter. What is called bog 
iron-ore supplies the conditions and the result in still more 
obvious correlation. 

Among igneous changes we do not find so many exam- 
ples of the process described. When distinguishing simple 
and compound evolution, it was pointed out (§ 102) that an 
excessive quantity of contained molecular motion, prevents 
permanence in those secondary re-distributions which make 
evolution compound. Xevertheless, geological phenomena 
of this order are not barren of illustrations. Where the 
mixed matters composing the Earth's crust have been raised 
to a very high temperature, segregation habitually takes 
place as the temperature diminishes. Sundry of the sub- 
stances that escape in a gaseous form from volcanoes, sub- 
lime into crystals on coming against cool surfaces; and so- 
lidifying as these substances do, at different temperatures, 
they are deposited at different parts of the crevices through 
which they are emitted together. The best illustration, 
however, is furnished by the changes that occur during the 
slow cooling of igneous rock. When, through one of the 
fractures from time to time made in the solid shell which 
forms the Earth's crust, a portion of the molten nucleus is 
extruded ; and when this is cooled with comparative rapidity, 
through free radiation and contact with cold masses; it forms 
a substance known as trap or basalt — a substance that is uni- 
form in texture, though made up of various ingredients. 
But when, not escaping through the superficial strata, such 
a portion of the molten nucleus is slowly cooled, it becomes 
what we know as granite: the mingled particles of quartz, 



482 SEGREGATION. 

feldspar, and mica, being kept for a long time in a fluid 
and semi-fluid state — a state of comparative mobility — un- 
dergo those changes of position which the forces impressed 
on them by their fellow units necessitate. Having time in 
which to generate the requisite motions of the atoms, the 
differential forces arising from mutual polarity, segregate 
the quartz, feldspar, and mica, into crystals. How com- 
pletely this is dependent on the long-continued agitation of 
the mixed particles, and consequent long-continued mobil- 
ity by small differential forces, is proved by the fact that in 
granite dykes, the crystals in the centre of the mass, where 
the fluidity or semi-fluidity continued for a longer time, are 
much larger than those at the sides, where contact with the 
neighbouring rock caused more rapid cooling and solidifica- 
tion. 

§ 166. The actions going on throughout an organism 
are so involved and subtle, that we cannot expect to identify 
the particular forces by which particular segregations are 
effected. Among the few instances admitting of tolerably 
definite interpretation, the best are those in which mechani- 
cal pressures and tensions are the agencies at work. We 
shall discover several on studying the bony frame of the 
higher animals. 

The vertebral column of a man, is subject, as a whole, to 
certain general strains — the weight of the body, together 
with the reactions involved by all considerable muscular 
efforts; and in conformity with this, it has become segre- 
gated as a whole. At the same time, being exposed to differ- 
ent forces in the course of those lateral bendings which the 
movements necessitate, its parts retain a certain separate- 
ness. And if we trace up the development of the vertebral 
column from its primitive form of a cartilaginous cord in the 
lowest fishes, we see that, throughout, it maintains an inte- 
gration corresponding to the unity of the incident forces, 
joined with a division into segments corresponding to the 



SEGREGATION. 483 

variety of the incident forces. Each segment, con- 

sidered apart, exemplifies the truth more simply. A verte- 
bra is not a single bone, but consists of a central mass with 
sundry appendages or processes; and in rudimentary types 
of vertebrae, these appendages are quite separate from the 
central mass, and, indeed, exist before it makes its appear- 
ance. But these several independent bones, constituting a 
primitive spinal segment, are subject to a certain aggregate 
of forces which agree more than they differ : as the fulcrum 
to a group of muscles habitually acting together, they per- 
petually undergo certain reactions in common. And ac- 
cordingly, we see that in the course of development they 
gradually coalesce. Still clearer is the illustration 

furnished by spinal segments that become fused together 
where they are together exposed to some predominant strain. 
The sacrum consists of a group of vertebras firmly united. 
In the ostrich and its congeners there are from seventeen to 
twenty sacral vertebra?; and besides being confluent with 
each other, these are confluent with the iliac bones, which 
run on each side of them. If now we assume these vertebras 
to have been originally separate, as they still are in the em- 
bryo bird; and if we consider the mechanical conditions to 
which they must in such case have been exposed; we shall 
see that their union results in the alleged way. For through 
these vertebrae the entire weight of the body is transferred 
to the legs : the legs support the pelvic arch ; the pelvic arch 
supports the sacrum; and to the sacrum is articulated the 
rest of the spine, with all the limbs and organs attached to 
it. Hence, if separate, the sacral vertebrae must be held 
firmly together by strongly-contracted muscles; and must, 
by implication, be prevented from partaking in those lateral 
movements which the other vertebrae undergo — they must 
be subject to a common strain, while they are preserved 
from strains which would affect them differently; and 
so they fulfil the conditions under which segregation 
occurs. But the cases in which cause and effect 



484 SEGREGATION. 

are brought into the most obvious relation, are supplied by 
the limbs. The metacarpal bones (those which in man sup- 
port the palm of the hand) are separate from each other in 
the majority of mammalia: the separate actions of the 
toes entailing on them slight amounts of separate move- 
ments. This is not so however in the ox-tribe and the 
horse-tribe. In the ox-tribe, only the middle metacarpals 
(third and fourth) are developed; and these, attaining mas- 
sive proportions, coalesce to form the cannon bone. In the 
horse-tribe, the segregation is what we may distinguish 
as indirect: the second and fourth metacarpals are present 
only as rudiments united to the sides of the third, while 
the third is immensely developed; thus forming a cannon 
bone which differs from that of the ox in being a single 
cylinder, instead of two cylinders fused together. The 
metatarsus in these quadrupeds exhibits parallel changes. 
JSTow each of these metamorphoses occurs where the differ- 
ent bones grouped together have no longer any differ- 
ent functions, but retain only a common function. The 
feet of oxen and horses are used solely for locomotion — are 
not put like those of unguiculate mammals to purposes 
which involve some relative movements of the metacarpals. 
Thus there directly or indirectly results a single mass of bone 
where the incident force is single. And for the inference 
that these facts have a causal connexion, we find confirma- 
tion throughout the entire class of birds; in the wings 
and legs of which, like segregations are found under like 
conditions. While this sheet is passing through the 

press, a fact illustrating this general truth in a yet more 
remarkable manner, has been mentioned to me by Prof. 
Huxley; who kindly allows me to make use of it while still 
unpublished by him. The Gh/ptodon, an extinct mammal 
found fossilized in South America, has long been known as a 
large uncouth creature allied to the Armadillo, but having a 
massive dermal armour consisting of polygonal plates close- 
ly fitted together so as to make a vast box, inclosing the body 



SEGREGATION. 4S5 

in such way as effectually to prevent it from being bent, 
laterally or vertically, in the slightest degree. This bony 
box, which must have weighed several hundred-weight, was 
supported on the spinous processes of the vertebrae, and on 
the adjacent bones of the pelvic and thoracic arches. And 
the significant fact now to be noted, is, that here, where the 
trunk vertebrae were together exposed to the pressure of this 
heavy dermal armour, at the same time that, by its rigidity, 
they were preserved from all relative movements, the entire 
series of them were united into one solid, continuous bone. 
The formation and maintenance of a species, considered 
as an assemblage of similar organisms, is interpretable in 
an analogous way. We have already seen that in so far as 
the members of a species are subject to different sets of inci- 
dent forces, they are differentiated, or divided into varieties. 
And here it remains to add that in so far as they are subject 
to like sets of incident forces, they are segregated, or reduced 
to, and kept in, the state of a uniform aggregate. For by the 
process of " natural selection," there is a continual purifica- 
tion of each species from those individuals which depart 
from the common type in ways that unfit them for the con- 
ditions of their existence. Consequently, there is a contin- 
ual leaving behind of those individuals which are in all re- 
spects fit for the conditions of their existence ; and are there- 
fore very nearly alike. The circumstances to which any 
species is exposed, being, as we before saw, an involved com- 
bination of incident forces; and the members of the species 
having mixed with them some that differ more than usual 
from the average structure required for meeting these 
forces; it results that these forces are constantly separating 
such divergent individuals from the rest, and so preserving 
the uniformity of the rest — keeping up its integrity as a spe- 
cies. Just as the changing autumn leaves are picked out by 
the wind from among the green ones around them, or just as, 
to use Prof. Huxley's simile, the smaller fragments pass 
through the sieve while the larger are kept back; so, the 



4SG SEGREGATION. 

uniform incidence of external forces affects the members of 
a group of organisms similarly in proportion as they are simi- 
lar, and differently in proportion as they are different; and 
thus is ever segregating the like by parting the unlike from 
them. Whether these separated members are killed off, as 
mostly happens, or whether, as otherwise happens, they sur- 
vive and multiply into a distinct variety, in consequence of 
their fitness to certain partially unlike conditions, matters 
not to the argument. The one case conforms to the law, that 
the unlike units of an aggregate are sorted into their kinds 
and parted when uniformly subject to the same incident 
forces ; and the other to the converse law, that the like units 
of an aggregate are parted and separately grouped when sub- 
ject to different incident forces. And on consulting Mr. 
Darwin's remarks on divergence of character, it will be seen 
that the segregations thus caused tend ever to become more 
definite. 

§ 167. Mental evolution under one of its leading as- 
pects, we found to consist in the formation of groups of like 
objects and like relations — a differentiation of the various 
things originally confounded together in one assemblage, 
and an integration of each separate order of things into a 
separate group (§ 153). Here it remains to point out that 
while unlikeness in the incident forces is the cause of such 
differentiations, likeness in the incident forces is the cause of 
such integrations. For what is the process through which 
classifications are established? At first, in common with 
the uninitiated, the botanist recognizes only such conven- 
tional divisions as those which agriculture has established — 
distinguishes a few vegetables and cereals, and groups the 
rest together into the one miscellaneous aggregate of wild 
plants. How do these wild plants become grouped in his 
mind into orders, genera, and species? Each plant he exam- 
ines yields him a certain complex impression. Every now 
and then he picks up a plant like one before seen; and the 



SEGREGATION". 4S7 

recognition of it is the production in him of a like connected 
group of sensations, by a like connected group of attributes. 
That is to say, there is produced throughout the nerves con- 
cerned, a combined set of changes, similar to a combined set 
of changes before produced. Considered analytically, each 
such combined set of changes is a combined set of molecular 
modifications wrought in the affected part of the organism. 
On every repetition of the impression, a like combined set of 
molecular modifications is superposed on the previous ones, 
and makes them greater: thus generating an internal idea 
corresponding to these similar external objects. Meanwhile, 
another kind of plant produces in the brain of the botanist 
another set of combined changes or molecular modifications 
— a set which does not agree with and deepen the one we 
have been considering, but disagrees with it; and by repeti- 
tion of such there is generated a different idea answering to 
a different species. What now is the nature of this 

process expressed in general terms ? On the one hand there 
are the like and unlike things from which severally emanate 
the groups of forces by which we perceive them. On the 
other hand, there are the organs of sense and percipient 
centres, through which, in the course of observation, these 
groups of forces pass. In passing through these organs of 
sense and percipient centres, the like groups of forces are se- 
gregated, or separated from the unlike groups of forces; and 
each such series of groups of forces, parted in this way from 
others, answering to an external genus or species, constitutes 
a state of consciousness which we call our idea of the genus 
or species. We before saw that as well as a separation of 
mixed matters by the same force, there is a separation of 
mixed forces by the same matter; and here we may further 
see that the unlike forces so separated, work unlike struc- 
tural changes in the aggregate that separates them — struc- 
tural changes each of which thus represents, and is equiva- 
lent to, the integrated series of motions that has produced it. 
By a parallel process, the connexions of co-existence and 



488 SEGREGATION. 

sequence among impressions, become sorted into kinds and 
grouped simultaneously with the impressions themselves. 
When two phenomena that have been experienced in a 
given order, are repeated in the same order, those nerves 
which before were affected by the transition are again af- 
fected; and such molecular modification as they received 
from the first motion propagated through them, is increased 
by this second motion along the same route. Each such mo- 
tion works a structural alteration, which, in conformity with 
the general law set forth in Chapter IX., involves a diminu- 
tion of the resistance to all such motions that afterwards 
occur. The segregation of these successive motions (or more 
strictly, the permanently effective portions of them expend- 
ed in overcoming resistance) thus becomes the cause of, and 
the measure of, the mental connexion between the impres- 
sions which the phenomena produce. Meanwhile, phenom- 
ena that are recognized as different from these, being phe- 
nomena that therefore affect different nervous elements, will 
have their connexions severally represented by motions 
along other routes ; and along each of these other routes, the 
nervous discharges will severally take place with a readiness 
proportionate to the frequency with which experience repeats 
the connexion of phenomena. The classification of relations 
must hence go on pari passu with the classification of the re- 
lated things. In common with the mixed sensations received 
from the external world, the mixed relations it presents, 
cannot be impressed on the organism without more or less 
segregation of them resulting. And through this continu- 
ous sorting and grouping together of changes or motions, 
which constitutes nervous function, there is gradually 
wrought that sorting and grouping together of matter, 
which constitutes nervous structure. 

§ 128. In social evolution, the collecting together of the 
like and the separation of the unlike, by incident forces, is 
primarily displayed in the same manner as we saw it to bo 



SEGREGATION. 489 

among groups of inferior creatures. The human races tend 
to differentiate and integrate, as do races of other living 
forms. Of the forces which effect and maintain the 

segregations of mankind, may first be named those external 
ones which we class as physical conditions. The climate and 
food that are favourable to an indigenous people, are more 
or less detrimental to a people of different bodily constitu- 
tion, coming from a remote part of the Earth. In tropical 
regions the northern races cannot permanently exist: if not 
killed off in the first generation, they are so in the second; 
and, as in India, can maintain their footing only by the 
artificial process of continuous immigration and emigration. 
That is to say, the external forces acting equally on the in- 
habitants of a given locality, tend to expel all who are not 
of a certain type ; and so to keep up the integration of those 
who are of that type. Though elsewhere, as among Euro- 
pean nations, we see a certain amount of permanent inter- 
mixture, otherwise brought about, we still see that this takes 
place between races of not very different types, that are 
naturalized to not very different conditions. The 

other forces conspiring to produce these national segrega- 
tions, are those mental ones which show themselves in the 
affinities of men for others like themselves. Emigrants 
usually desire to get back among their own people; and 
where their desire does not take effect, it is only because the 
restraining ties are too great. Units of one society who 
are obliged to reside in another, very generally form colo- 
nies in the midst of that other — small societies of their 
own. Races which have been artificially severed, show 
strong tendencies to re-unite. Now though these segrega- 
tions that result from the mutual affinities of kindred men, 
do not seem interpretable as illustrations of the general 
principle above enunciated, they really are thus interpret- 
able. When treating of the direction of motion (§ 80), 
it was shown that the actions performed by men for the 
satisfaction of their wants, were always motions along lines 



400 SEGREGATION. 

of least resistance. The feelings characterizing a member 
of a given race, are feelings which get complete satisfaction 
only among other members of that race — a satisfaction 
partly derived from sympathy with those having like feel- 
ings, but mainly derived from the adapted social conditions 
which grow up where such feelings prevail. When, there- 
fore, a citizen of any nation is, as we see, attracted towards 
others of his nation, the rationale is, that certain agencies 
which we call desires, move him in the direction of least 
resistance. Human motions, like all other motions, being 
determined by the distribution of forces, it follows that 
such segregations of races as are not produced by incident 
external forces, are produced by forces which the units of 
the races exercise on each other. 

During the development of each society, we see analo- 
gous segregations caused in analogous ways. A few of them 
result from minor natural affinities; but those most impor- 
tant ones which constitute political and industrial organiza- 
tion, result from the union of men in whom similarities have 
been produced by education — using education in its widest 
sense, as comprehending all processes by which citizens are 
moulded to special functions. Men brought up to bodily 
labour, are men who have had wrought in them a certain 
likeness — a likeness which, in respect of their powers of ac- 
tion, obscures and subordinates their natural differences. 
Those trained to brain-work, have acquired a certain other 
community of character which makes them, as social units, 
more like each other than like those trained to manual occu- 
pations. And there arise class-segregations answering to 
these superinduced likenesses. Much more definite segrega- 
tions take place among the much more definitely assimi- 
lated members of any class who are brought up to the same 
calling. Even where the necessities of their work forbid 
concentration in one locality, as among artizans happens 
with masons and bricklayers, and among traders happens 
with the retail distributors, and among professionals happens 



SEGREGATION. 491 

with the medical men; there are not wanting Operative 
Builders Unions, and Grocers Societies, and Medical Asso- 
ciations, to show that these artificially-assimilated citizens 
become integrated as much as the conditions permit. And 
where, as among the manufacturing classes, the functions 
discharged do not require the dispersion of the citizens thus 
artificially assimilated, there is a progressive aggregation of. 
them in special localities; and a consequent increase in the 
definiteness of the industrial divisions. If now we 

seek the causes of these segregations, considered as results 
of force and motion, w r e find ourselves brought to the same 
general principle as before. This likeness generated in any 
class or sub-class by training, is an aptitude acquired by its 
members for satisfying their wants in like ways. That is,' the 
occupation to which each man has been brought up, has be- 
come to him, in common with those similarly brought up, a 
line of least resistance. Hence under that pressure which 
determines all men to activity, these similarly-modified 
social units are similarly affected, and tend to take similar 
courses. If then there be any locality which, either by its 
physical peculiarities or by peculiarities wrought on it 
during social evolution, is rendered a place where a certain 
kind of industrial action meets with less resistance than else- 
where; it follows from the law of direction of motion that 
those social units who have been moulded to this kind of 
industrial action, will move towards this place, or become 
integrated there. If, for instance, the proximity of coal and 
iron mines to a navigable river, gives to Glasgow a certain 
;idvantage in the building of iron ships — if the total labour 
required to produce the same vessel, and get its equivalent 
in food and clothing, la less there than eleswhere; a con- 
centration of iron-ship builders is produced at Glasgow: 
either by keeping there the population born to iron-ship 
building; or by immigration of those elsewhere engaged in 
it; or by both — a concentration that would be still more 
marked did not other districts offer counter-balancing facili- 



492 SEGREGATION. 

ties. The principle equally holds where the occupation is 
mercantile instead of manufacturing. Stock-brokers cluster 
together in the city, because the amount of effort to be 
severally gone through by them in discharging their func- 
tions, and obtaining their profits, is less there than in other 
localities. A place of exchange having once been estab- 
lished, becomes a place where the resistance to be overcome 
by each is less than eleswhere ; and the pursuit of the course 
of least resistance by each, involves their aggregation around 
this place. 

Of course, with units so complicated as those which con- 
stitute a society, and with forces so involved as those which 
move them, the resulting selections and separations must 
be far more entangled, or far less definite, than those we 
have hitherto considered. But though there may be pointed 
out many anomalies which at first sight seem inconsistent 
with the alleged law, a closer study shows that they are but 
subtler illustrations of it. For men's likenesses being of 
various kinds, lead to various orders of segregation. There 
are likenesses of disposition, likenesses of taste, likenesses 
produced by intellectual culture, likenesses that result from 
class-training, likenesses of political feeling; and it needs 
but to glance round at the caste-divisions, the associations 
for philanthropic, scientific, and artistic purposes, the re- 
ligious parties and social cliques ; to see that some species of 
likeness among the component members of each body 
determines their union. Now the different segregative pro- 
cesses by traversing one another, and often by their indirect 
antagonism, more or less obscure one another's effects; and 
prevent any one differentiated class from completely inte- 
grating. Hence the anomalies referred to. But if tins 
cause of incompleteness be duly borne in mind, social segre- 
gations will be seen to conform entirely to the same principle 
as all other segregations. Analysis will show that either by 
externa] incident forces, or by what we may in a sense 
regard as mutual polarity, there are ever being produced in 



SEGREGATION. 493 

society segregations of those units which have either a 
natural likeness or a likeness generated by training. 

§ 169. Can the general truth thus variously illustrated 
be deduced from the persistence of force, in common with 
foregoing ones? Probably the exposition at the beginning 
of the chapter will have led most readers to conclude that it 
can be so deduced. 

The abstract propositions involved are these: — First, 
that like units, subject to a uniform force capable of produc- 
ing motion in them, will be moved to like degrees in the same 
direction. Second, that like units if exposed to unlike forces 
capable of producing motion in them, will be differently 
moved — moved either in different directions or to different 
degrees in the same direction. Third, that unlike units if 
acted on by a uniform force capable of producing motion in 
them, will be differently moved — moved either in different 
directions or to different degrees in the same direction. 
Fourth, that the incident forces themselves must be affected 
in analogous ways : like forces falling on like units must be 
similarly modified by the conflict; unlike forces falling on 
like units must be dissimilarly modified ; and like forces fall- 
ing on unlike units must be dissimilarly modified. These 
propositions admit of reduction to a still more abstract form. 
They all of them amount to this: — that in the actions and 
reactions of force and matter, an unlikeness in either of 
the factors necessitates an unlikeness in the effects; and that 
in the absence of unlikeness in either of the factors the 
effects must be alike. 

When thus generalized, the immediate dependence of 
these propositions on the persistence of force, becomes obvi- 
ous. Any two forces that are not alike, are forces which dif- 
fer cither in their amounts or directions or both ; and by what 
mathematicians call the resolution of forces, it may be 
proved that this difference is constituted by the presence in 
the one of some force not present in the other. Similarly, 



491 SEGREGATION. 

any two units or portions of matter which are unlike in size, 
weight, form, or other attribute, can be known by us as un- 
like only through some unlikeness in the forces they impress 
on our consciousness; and hence this unlikeness also, is 
constituted by the presence in the one of some force or forces 
not present in the other. Such being the common nature of 
these unlikenesses, what is the inevitable corollary? Any 
unlikeness in the' incident forces, where the things acted on 
are alike, must generate a difference between the effects; 
since otherwise, the differential force produces no effect, and 
force is not persistent. Any unlikeness in the things acted 
on, where the incident forces are alike, must generate a dif- 
ference between the effects; since otherwise, the differential 
force whereby these things are made unlike, produces no ef- 
fect, and force is not persistent. While, conversely, if the 
forces acting and the things acted on, are alike, the effects 
must be alike; since otherwise, a differential effect can be 
produced without a differential cause, and force is not per- 
sistent. 

Thus these general truths being necessary implications 
of the persistence of force, all the re-distributions above 
traced out as characterizing Evolution in its various phases, 
are also implications of the persistence of force. Such por- 
tions of the permanently effective forces acting on any ag- 
gregate, as produce sensible motions in its parts, cannot but 
work the segregations which we see take place. If of the 
mixed units making up such aggregate, those of the same 
kind have like motions impressed on them by a uniform 
force, while units of another kind are moved by this uniform 
force in ways more or less unlike the ways in which those 
of the first kind are moved, the two kinds must separate and 
integrate. If the units are alike and the forces unlike, a 
division of the differently affected units is equally necessi- 
tated. Thus there inevitably arises the demarcated group- 
ing which we everywhere see. By virtue of this segregation 
llial grows ever more decided while there remains any possi 



SEGREGATION. 495 

bility of increasing it, the change from uniformity to multi- 
formity is accompanied by a change from indistinctness in 
the relations of parts to distinctness in the relations of parts. 
As we before saw that the transformation of the homegene- 
ous into the heterogeneous is inferable from that ultimate 
truth which transcends proof ; so we here see, that from this 
same truth is inferable the transformation of an inde fini te 
homogeneity into a definite heterogeneity. 



CHAPTEE XXII. 

EQUILIBRATION. 

§ 170. And now towards what do these changes tend? 
Will they go on for ever? or will there be an end to them? 
Can things increase in heterogeneity through all future 
time? or must there be a degree which the differentiation 
and integration of Matter and Motion cannot pass? Is it 
possible for this universal metamorphosis to proceed in the 
same general course indefinitely? or does it work towards 
some ultimate state, admitting no further modification of 
like kind? The last of these alternative conclusions is that 
to which we are inevitably driven. Whether we watch 
concrete processes, or whether we consider the question in 
the abstract, we are alike taught that Evolution has an im- 
passable limit. 

The re-distributions of matter that go on around us, are 
ever being brought to conclusions by the dissipation of the 
motions which effect them. The rolling stone parts with 
portions of its momentum to the things it strikes, and finally 
comes to rest; as do also, in like manner, the various things 
it has struck. Descending from the clouds and trickling 
over the Earth's surface till it gathers into brooks and rivers, 
water, still running towards a lower level, is at last arrested 
by the resistance of other water that has reached the lowest 
level. In the lake or sea thus formed, every agitation raised 
by a wind or the immersion of a solid body, propagates itself 

around in waves that diminish as they widen, and gradually 

490 



EQUILIBRATION. 497 

become lost to observation in motions communicated to the 
atmosphere and the matter on the shores. The impulse 
given by a player to the harp-string, is transformed through 
its vibrations into aerial pulses; and these, spreading on all 
sides, and weakening as they spread, soon cease to be per- 
ceptible ; and finally die away in generating thermal undula- 
tions that radiate into space. Equally in the cinder that 
falls out of the fire, and in the vast masses of molten lava 
ejected by a volcano, we see that the molecular agitation 
known to us as heat, disperses itself by radiation; so that how- 
ever great its amount, it inevitably sinks at last to the same 
degree as that existing in surrounding bodies. And if the 
actions observed be electrical or chemical, we still find that 
they work themselves out in producing sensible or insensible 
movements, that are dissipated as before ; until quiescence is 
eventually reached. The proximate rationale of 

the process exhibited under these several forms, lies in the 
fact dwelt on when treating of the Multiplication of Effects, 
that motions are ever being decomposed into divergent mo- 
tions, and these into re-divergent motions. The rolling stone 
sends off the stones it hits in directions differing more or less 
from its own ; and they do the like with the things they hit. 
Move water or air, and the movement is quickly resolved into 
radiating movements. The heat produced by pressure in a 
given direction, diffuses itself by undulations in all direc- 
tions; and so do the light and electricity similarly generated. 
That is to say, these motions undergo division and subdivi- 
sion; and by continuance of this process without limit, they 
are, though never lost, gradually reduced to insensible mo- 
tions. 

In all cases then, there is a progress toward equilibra- 
tion. That universal co-existence of antagonist forces 
which, as we before saw, necessitates the universality of 
rhythm, and which, as we before saw, necessitates t\\e de- 
composition of every force into divergent forces, at the same 
time necessitates the ultimate establishment of a balance. 



493 EQUILIBRATION. 

Every motion being motion nnder resistance, is continually 
suffering deductions ; and these unceasing deductions finally 
result in the cessation of the motion. 

The general truth thus illustrated under its simplest 
aspect, we must now look at under those more complex 
aspects it usually presents throughout Mature. In nearly all 
cases, the motion of an aggregate is compound; and the 
equilibration of each of its components, being carried on in- 
dependently, does not affect the rest. The ship's bell that 
has ceased to vibrate, still continues those vertical and lateral 
oscillations caused by the ocean-swell. The water of the 
smooth stream on whose surface have died away the undu- 
lations caused by the rising fish, moves as fast as before 
onward to the sea. The arrested bullet travels with un- 
diminished speed round the Earth's axis. And were the 
rotation of the Earth destroyed, there would not be implied 
any diminution of the Earth's movement with respect to the 
Sun and other external bodies. So that in every case, what 
we regard as equilibration is a disappearance of some one or 
more of the many movements which a body possesses, while 
its other movements continue as before. That this 

process may be duly realized and the state of things towards 
which it tends fully understood, it will be well here to cite a 
case in which we may watch this successive equilibration of 
combined movements more completely than we can do in 
those above instanced. Our end will best be served, not by 
the most imposing, but by the most familiar example. Let 
us take that of the spinning top. When the string which 
has been wrapped round a top's axis is violently drawn off, 
and the top falls on to the table, it usually happens that be- 
sides the rapid rotation, two other movements are given to it. 
A slight horizontal momentum, unavoidably impressed on 
it when leaving the handle, carries it away bodily from the 
place on which it drops; and in consequence of its axis being 
more or less inclined, it falls into a certain oscillation, 
described by the expressive though inelegant word — 



EQUILIBRATION". 499 

" wabbling." These two subordinate motions, variable in 
their proportions to each other and to the chief motion, are 
commonly soon brought to a close by separate processes of 
equilibration. The momentum which carries the top bodily 
along the table, resisted somewhat by the air, but mainly by 
the irregularities of the surface, shortly disappears; and the 
top thereafter continues to spin on one spot. Meanwhile, in 
consequence of that opposition which the axial momentum 
of a rotating body makes to any change in the plane of rota- 
tion, (so beautifully exhibited by the gyroscope,) the " wab- 
bling " diminishes; and like the other is quickly ended. 
These minor motions having been dissipated, the rotatory 
motion, interfered with only by atmospheric resistance and 
the friction of the pivot, continues some time with such uni- 
formity that the top appears stationary: there being thus 
temporarily established a condition which the French 
mathematicians have termed equilibrium mobile. It is true 
that when the axial velocity sinks below a certain point, 
new motions commence, and increase till the top falls; but 
these are merely incidental to a case in which the centre of 
gravity is above the point of support. Were the top, having 
an axis of steel, to be suspended from a surface adequately 
magnetized, all the phenomena described would be dis- 
played, and the moving equilibrium having been once ar- 
rived at, would continue until the top became motionless, 
without any further change of position. Now the 

facts which it behoves us here to observe, are these. First, 
that the various motions which an aggregate possesses are 
separately equilibrated : those which are smallest, or which 
meet with the greatest resistance, or both, disappearing first; 
and leaving at last, that which is greatest, or meets with least 
resistance, or both. Second, that when the aggregate has a 
movement of its parts with respect to each other, which en- 
counters but little external resistance, there is apt to be es- 
tablished an equilibrium mobile. Third, that this moving 
equilibrium eventually lapses into complete equilibrium. 



500 EQUILIBRATION. 

Fully to comprehend the process of equilibration, is not 
easy; since we have simultaneously to contemplate various 
phases of it. The best course will be to glance separately at 
what we may conveniently regard as its four different 
orders. The first order includes the comparatively 

simple motions, as those of projectiles, which are not pro- 
longed enough to exhibit their rhythmical character; but 
which, being quickly divided and subdivided into motions 
communicated to other portions of matter, are presently dis- 
sipated in the rhythm of ethereal undulations. In 
the second order, comprehending the various kinds of vi- 
bration or oscillation as usually witnessed, the motion is used 
up in generating a tension which, having become equal to it 
or momentarily equilibrated with it, thereupon produces a 
motion in the opposite direction, that is subsequently equili- 
brated in like manner: thus causing a visible rhythm, that 
is, however, soon lost in invisible rhythms. The third 
order of equilibration, not hitherto noticed, obtains in those 
aggregates which continually receive as much motion as 
they expend. The steam engine (and especially that kind 
which feeds its own furnace and boiler) supplies an example. 
Here the force from moment to moment dissipated in over- 
coming the resistance of the machinery driven, is from mo- 
ment to moment re-placed from the fuel ; and the balance of 
the two is maintained by a raising or lowering of the ex- 
penditure according to the variation of the supply: each in- 
crease or decrease in the quantity of steam, resulting in a rise 
or fall of the engine's movement, such as brings it to a bal- 
ance with the increased or decreased resistance. This, which 
we may fitly call the dependent moving equilibrium, should 
be specially noted; since it is one that we shall commonly 
meet with throughout various phases of Evolution. The 
equilibration to be distinguished as of the fourth order, is the 
independent or perfect moving equilibrium. This we see 
illustrated in the rhythmical motions of the Solar System; 
which, being resisted only by a medium of inappreciable 



EQUILIBRATION - . 501 

density, undergo no sensible diminution in such periods of 
time as we can measure. 

All these kinds of equilibration may, however, from the 
highest point of view, be regarded as different modes of one 
kind. For in every case the balance arrived at is relative, 
and not absolute — is a cessation of the motion of some par- 
ticular body in relation to a certain point or points, in- 
volving neither the disappearance of the relative motion lost, 
which is simply transformed into other motions, nor a dimi- 
nution of the body's motions with respect to other points. 
Thus understanding equilibration, it manifestly includes 
that equilibrium mobile, which at first sight seems of an- 
other nature. For any system of bodies exhibiting, like 
those of the Solar System, a combination of balanced 
rhythms, has this peculiarity: — that though the constitu- 
ents of the system have relative movements, the system as a 
whole has no movement. The centre of gravity of the entire 
group remains fixed. AVhatever quantity of motion any 
member of it has in any direction, is from moment to mo- 
ment counter-balanced by an equivalent motion in some 
other part of the group in an opposite direction; and so the 
aggregate matter of the group is in a state of rest. "Whence 
it follows that the arrival at a state of moving equilibrium, 
is the disappearance of some movement which the aggre- 
gate had in relation to external things, and a continuance 
of those movements only which the different parts of the 
aggregate have in relation to each other. Thus generaliz- 
ing the process, it becomes clear that all forms of equilibra- 
tion are intrinsically the same; since in every aggregate, 
it is the centre of gravity only that loses its motion: the 
constituents always retaining some motion with respect to 
each other — the motion of molecules if none else. Every 
equilibrium commonly regarded as absolute, is in one sense 
a moving equilibrium; because along with a motionless 
state of the whole there is always some relative movement 
of its insensible parts. And, conversely, every moving 



502 EQUILIBRATION. 

equilibrium may be in one sense regarded as absolute; be- 
cause the relative movements of its sensible parts are accom- 
panied by a motionless state of the whole. 

Something has still to be added before closing these 
somewhat too elaborate preliminaries. The reader must 
now especially note two leading truths brought out by the 
foregoing exposition: the one concerning the ultimate, or 
rather the penultimate, state of motion which the processes 
described tend to bring about ; the other concerning the con- 
comitant distribution of matter. This penultimate 
state of motion is the moving equilibrium ; which, as we have 
seen, tends to arise in an aggregate having compound mo- 
tions, as a transitional state on the way towards complete 
equilibrium. Throughout Evolution of all kinds, there is a 
continual approximation to, and more or less complete main- 
tenance of, this moving equilibrium. As in the Solar Sys- 
tem there has been established an independent moving 
equilibrium — an equilibrium such that the relative motions 
of the constituent parts are continually so counter-balanced 
by opposite motions, that the mean state of the whole aggre- 
gate never varies; so is it, though in a less distinct manner, 
with each form of dependent moving equilibrium. The 
state of things exhibited in the cycles of terrestrial changes, 
in the balanced functions of organic bodies that have 
reached their adult forms, and in the acting and re-acting 
processes of fully-developed societies, is similarly one char- 
acterized by compensating oscillations. The involved com- 
bination of rhythms seen in each of these cases, has an 
average condition which remains practically constant during 
the deviations ever taking place on opposite sides of it. And 
the fact which we have here particularly to observe, is, that 
as a corollary from a general law of equilibration above set 
forth, the evolution of every aggregate must go on until this 
eqtdHbrvum mobile is established; since, as we have seen, 
an excess of force which the aggregate possesses in any direc- 
tion, must eventually be expended in overcoming resist- 



EQUILIBRATION". 503 

ances to change in that direction : leaving behind only those 
movements which compensate each other, and so form a 
moving equilibrium. Respecting the structural 

state simultaneously reached, it must obviously be one pre- 
senting an arrangement of forces that counterbalance all 
the forces to which the aggregate is subject. So long as 
there remains a residual force in any direction — be it excess 
of a force exercised by the aggregate on its environment, or 
of a force exercised by its environment on the aggregate, 
equilibrium does not exist ; and therefore the re-distribution 
of matter must continue. "Whence it follows that the limit 
of heterogeneity towards which every aggregate progresses, 
is the formation of as many specializations and combina- 
tions of parts, as there are specialized and combined forces 
to be met. 

§171. Those successively changed forms which, if the 
nebular hypothesis be granted, must have arisen during 
the evolution of the Solar System, were so many transitional 
kinds of moving equilibrium ; severally giving place to more 
permanent kinds on the way towards complete equilibration. 
Thus the assumption of an oblate spheroidal figure by con- 
densing nebulous matter, was the assumption of a temporary 
and partial moving equilibrium among the component parts 
— a moving equilibrium that must have slowly grown 
more settled, as local conflicting movements were dis- 
sipated. In the formation and detachment of the 
nebulous rings, which, according to this hypothesis, from 
time to time took place, we have instances of progressive 
equilibration ending in the establishment of a complete mov- 
ing equilibrium. For the genesis of each such ring, implies 
a perfect balancing of that aggregative force which the 
whole spheroid exercises on its equatorial portion, by that 
centrifugal force which the equatorial portion baa acquired 
during previous concentration: so long as these two forces 
are not equal, the equatorial portion follows the contracting 



504 EQUILIBRATION". 

mass ; but as soon as the second force has increased up to an 
equality with the first, the equatorial portion can follow no 
further, and remains behind. While, however, the resulting 
ring, regarded as a whole connected by forces with external 
wholes, has reached a state of moving equilibrium; its parts 
are not balanced with respect to each other. As we be- 
fore saw (§ 150) the probabilities against the maintenance 
of an annular form by nebulous matter, are immense : from 
the instability of the homogeneous, it is inferrable that nebu- 
lous matter so distributed must break up into portions; 
and eventually concentrate into a single mass. That is to 
say, the ring must progress towards a moving equilibrium 
of a more complete kind, during the dissipation of that 
motion which maintained its particles in a diffused form: 
leaving at length a planetary body, attended perhaps by a 
group of minor bodies, severally having residuary relative 
motions that are no longer resisted by sensible media; and 
there is thus constituted an equilibrium mobile that is all but 
absolutely perfect.* 

Hypothesis aside, the principle of equilibration is still 
perpetually illustrated in those minor changes of state which 

* Sir David Brewster has recently been citing with approval, a calculation 
bv M. Babinet, to the effect that on ihe hypothesis of nebular genesis, the 
matter of the Sun, when it filled the Earth's orbit, must have taken 3181 yeara 
to rotate ; and that therefore the hypothesis cannot be true. This calculation 
of M. Babinet may pair-off with that of M. Comte, who, ccntrariwise, made 
the time of this rotation agree very nearly with the Earth's period of revolu- 
tion round the Sun ; for if M. Comtc's calculation involved a petilio principii, 
that of M. Babinet is manifestly based on two assumptions, both of which are 
Gratuitous, and one of them totally inconsistent with the doctrine to be tested. 
lie has evidently proceeded on the current supposition respecting the Sun's 
internal density, which is not proved, and from which there are reasons for 
dissenting; and he has evidently taken for granted that all parts of the neb- 
ulous spheroid, when it filled the Earth's orbit, had the same angular velocity; 
whereas if (as is implied in the nebular hypothesis, rationally understood) this 
splioroH resulted from the concentration of far more widely-diffused matter, 
the angular velocity of its equatorial portion would obviously be immensely 
greater than that of its central portion. 



EQUILIBRATION. 505 

the Solar System is undergoing. Each planet, satellite, 
and comet, exhibits to us at its aphelion a momentary equi- 
librium between that force which urges it further away from 
its primary, and that force which retards its retreat; since 
the retreat goes on until the last of these forces exactly 
counterpoises the first. In like manner at perihelion a con- 
verse equilibrium is momentarily established. The varia- 
tion of each orbit in size, in eccentricity, and in the position 
of its plane, has similarly a limit at which the forces pro- 
ducing change in the one direction, are equalled by those 
antagonizing it; and an opposite limit at which an opposite 
arrest takes place. Meanwhile, each of these simple per- 
turbations, as well as each of the complex ones resulting from 
their combination, exhibits, besides the temporary equilibra- 
tion at each of its extremes, a certain general equilibra- 
tion of compensating deviations on either side of a mean 
state. That the moving equilibrium thus constituted, 

tends, in the course of indefinite time, to lapse into a com- 
plete equilibrium, by the gradual decrease of planetary mo- 
tions and eventual integration of all the separate masses com- 
posing the Solar System, is a belief suggested by certain 
observed cometary retardations, and entertained by some of 
high authority. The received opinion that the appreciable 
diminution in the period of Encke's comet, implies a loss of 
momentum caused by resistance of the ethereal medium, 
commits astronomers who hold it, to the conclusion that this 
same resistance must cause a loss of planetary motions — a 
loss which, infinitesimal though it may be in such periods as 
we can measure, will, if indefinitely continued, bring these 
motions to a close. Even should there be, as Sir John 
Herschel suggests, a rotation of the ethereal medium in the 
same direction with the planets, this arrest, though im- 
mensely postponed, would not be absolutely prevented. 
Such an eventuality, however, must in any case be so incon- 
ceivably remote as to have no other than a speculative inter- 
est for us. It is referred to here, simply as illustrating the 
34 



506 EQUILIBRATION. 

still-continued tendency towards complete equilibrium, 
through the still-continued dissipation of sensible motion, 
or transformation of it into insensible motion. 

But there is another species of equilibration going on in 
the Solar System, with which we are more nearly concerned 
— the equilibration of that molecular motion known as heat. 
The tacit assumption hitherto current, that the Sun can con- 
tinue to give off an undiminished amount of light and heat 
through all future time, is fast being abandoned. Involv- 
ing as it does, under a disguise, the conception of power pro- 
duced out of nothing, it is of the same order as the belief 
that misleads perpetual-motion schemers. The spreading 
recognition of the truth that force is persistent, and that con- 
sequently whatever force is manifested under one shape 
must previously have existed under another shape, is carry- 
ing with it a recognition of the truth that the force known 
to us in solar radiations, is the changed form of some other 
force of which the Sun is the seat ; and that by the gradual 
dissipation of these radiations into space, this other force is 
being slowly exhausted. The aggregative force by which 
the Sun's substance is drawn to his centre of gravity, is the 
only one which established physical laws warrant us in sus- 
pecting to be the correlate of the forces thus emanating from 
him : the only source of a known kind that can be assigned 
for the insensible motions constituting solar light and heat, 
is the sensible motion which disappears during the progress- 
ing concentration of the Sun's substance. We before saw it 
to be a corollary from the nebular hypothesis, that there is 
such a progressing concentration of the Sun's substance. 
And here remains to be added the further corollary, that 
just as in the case of the smaller members of the Solar Sys- 
tem, the heat generated by concentration, long ago in great 
part radiated into space, has left only a central residue 
that now escapes but slowly; so in the case of that im- 
mensely larger mass forming the Sun, the immensely 
greater quantity of heat generated and still in process of 



EQUILIBRATION. 507 

rapid diffusion, must, as the concentration approaches its 
limit, diminish in amount, and eventually leave only an in- 
appreciable internal remnant. With or with- 
out the accompaniment of that hypothesis of nebular 
condensation, whence, as we see, it naturally follows, 
the doctrine that the Sun is gradually losing his heat, 
has now gained considerable currency; and calcula- 
tions have been made, both respecting the amount 
of heat and light already radiated, as compared with 
the amount that remains, and respecting the period during 
which active radiation is likely to continue. Prof. Helm- 
holtz estimates, that since the time when, according to the 
nebular hypothesis, the matter composing the Solar System 
extended to the orbit of Neptune, there has been evolved 
by the arrest of sensible motion, an amount of heat 454 
times as great as that which the Sun still has to give out. 
He also makes an approximate estimate of the rate at which 
this remaining ^J-j-th is being diffused: showing that a 
diminution of the Sun's diameter to the extent of yffYo-ffT' 
would produce heat, at the present rate, for more than 2000 
years; or in other words, that a contraction of -si^oinMjTnr 
of his diameter, suffices to generate the amount of light 
and heat annually emitted ; and that thus, at the present rate 
of expenditure, the Sun's diameter will diminish by some- 
thing like -gir in the lapse of the next million years. * Of 
course these conclusions are not to be considered as more 
than rude approximations to the truth. Until quite recent- 
ly, we have been totally ignorant of the Sun's chemical 
composition; and even now have obtained but a superficial 
knowledge of it. We know nothing of his internal struc- 
ture; and it is quite possible (probable, I believe,) that the 
assumptions respecting central density, made in the forego- 
ing estimates, are wrong. But no uncertainty in the data on 

* See paper " On tlio Intcr-action of Natural Forces, " by Prof. Hclmholtz, 
translated by Prof. Tyndall, and published in the Philosophical Magazine, 

supplement to Vol. XI. fourth series. 



508 EQUILIBRATION. 

which these calculations proceed, and no consequent error in 
the inferred rate at which the Sun is expending his reserve 
of force, militates against the general proposition that this 
reserve of force is being expended ; and must in time be ex- 
hausted. Though the residue of undifTused motion in the 
Sun, may be much greater than is above concluded ; though 
the rate of radiation cannot, as assumed, continue at a uni- 
form rate, but must eventually go on with slowly-decreasing 
rapidity ; and though the period at which the Sun will cease 
to afford us adequate light and heat, is very possibly far more 
distant than above implied; yet such a period must some 
time be reached, and this is all which it here concerns us to 
observe. 

Thus while the Solar System, if evolved from diffused 
matter, has illustrated the law of equilibration in the estab- 
lishment of a complete moving equilibrium ; and while, as at 
present constituted, it illustrates the law of equilibration in 
the balancing of all its movements ; it also illustrates this law 
in the processes which astronomers and physicists infer are 
still going on. That motion of masses produced during Evo- 
lution, is being slowly re-diffused in molecular motion of the 
ethereal medium; both through the progressive integration 
of each mass, and the resistance to its motion through space. 
Infinitely remote as may be the state when all the motions of 
masses shall be transformed into molecular motion, and all 
the molecular motion equilibrated; yet such a state of com- 
plete integration and complete equilibration, is that towards 
which the changes now going on throughout the Solar Sys- 
tem inevitably tend. 

§ 172. A spherical figure is the one which can alone 
equilibrate the forces of mutually-gravitating atoms. If the 
aggregate of such atoms has a rotatory motion, the form of 
equilibrium becomes a spheroid of greater or less oblateness, 
according to the rate of rotation ; and it has been ascertained 
that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, diverging just as much 



EQUILIBRATION. 509 

from sphericity as is requisite to counterbalance the centrif- 
ugal force consequent on its velocity round its axis. That is 
to say, during the evolution of the Earth, there has been 
reached a complete equilibrium of those forces which affect 
its general outline. The only other process of equili- 

bration which the Earth as a whole can exhibit, is the loss of 
its axial motion ; and that any such loss is going on, we have 
no direct evidence. It has been contended, however, by 
Prof. Helmholtz, that inappreciable as may be its effect 
within known periods of time, the friction of the tidal wave 
must be slowly diminishing the Earth's rotatory motion, 
and must eventually destroy it. Now though it seems an 
oversight to say that the Earth's rotation can thus be de- 
stroyed, since the extreme effect, to be reached only in infi- 
nite time by such a process, would be an extension of the 
Earth's day to the Jength of a lunation, yet it seems clear 
that this friction of the tidal wave is a real cause of decreasing 
rotation. Slow as its action is, we must recognize it as ex- 
emplifying, under another form, the universal progress to- 
wards equilibrium. 

It is needless to point out, in detail, how those move- 
ments which the Sun's rays generate in the air and water on 
the Earth's surface, and through them in the Earth's 
solid substance,* one and all teach the same general 
truth. Evidently the winds and waves and streams, as well 
as the denudations and depositions they effect, perpetually 
illustrate on a grand scale, and in endless modes, that grad- 
ual dissipation of motions described in the first section; and 
the consequent tendency towards a balanced distribution of 
forces. Each of these sensible motions, produced directly or 

* Until I recently consulted his " Outlines of Astronomy" on another ques- 
tion, I was not aware that so far back as 1833, Sir John Ilerschel had enunci- 
ated the doctrine that "the sun's rays are the ultimate source of almost every 
motion which takes place on the surface of the earth." He expressly includes 
all geologic, meteorologic, and vital actions ; as also those which we produce 
by the combustion of coal. The late George Stephenson appears to have been 
wrongly credited with this last idea. 



510 EQUILIBRATION. 

indirectly by integration of those insensible motions comma- 
nicated from the Sun, becomes, as we have seen, divided and 
subdivided into motions less and less sensible ; until it is final- 
ly reduced to insensible motions, and radiated from the 
Earth in the shape of thermal undulations. In their 

totality, these complex movements of aerial, liquid, and solid 
matter on the Earth's crust, constitute a dependent moving 
equilibrium. As we before saw, there is traceable through- 
out them an involved combination of rhythms. The unceas- 
ing circulation of water from the ocean to the land, and from 
the land back to the ocean, is a type of these various compen- 
sating actions; which, in the midst of all the irregularities 
produced by their mutual interferences, maintain an aver- 
age. And in this, as in other equilibrations of the third 
order, we see that the power from moment to moment in 
course of dissipation, is from moment to moment renewed 
from without: the rises and falls in the supply, being bal- 
anced by rises and falls in the expenditures; as witness the 
correspondence between the magnetic variations and the 
cycle of the solar spots. But the fact it chiefly 

concerns us to observe, is, that this process must go on bring- 
ing things ever nearer to complete rest. These mechanical 
movements, meteorologic and geologic, which are continu- 
ally being equilibrated, both temporarily by counter-move- 
ments and permanently by the dissipation of such move- 
ments and counter-movements, will slowly diminish as the 
quantity of force received from the Sun diminishes. As the 
insensible motions propagated to us from the centre of our 
system become feebler, the sensible motions here produced 
by them must decrease; and at that remote period when the 
solar heat has ceased to be appreciable, there will no longer 
be any appreciable re-distributions of matter on the surface 
of our planet. 

Thus from the highest point of view, all terrestrial 
changes are incidents in the course of cosmical equilibration. 
1 ! w;is before pointed out, (§ 69) that of the incessant altera- 



EQUILIBRATION. 511 

tions which the Earth's crust and atmosphere undergo, those 
which are not due to the still-progressing motion of the 
Earth's substance towards its centre of gravity, are due to 
the still-progressing motion of the Sun's substance towards 
its centre of gravity. Here it is to be remarked, that this 
continuance of integration in the Earth and in the Sun, is 
a continuance of that transformation of sensible motion into 
insensible motion which we have seen ends in equilibration ; 
and that the arrival in each case at the extreme of integra- 
tion, is the arrival at a state in which no more sensible mo- 
tion remains to be transformed into insensible motion — a 
state in which the forces producing integration and the 
forces opposing integration, have become equal. 

§ 173. Every living body exhibits, in a four-fold form, 
the process we are tracing out — exhibits it from moment to 
moment in the balancing of mechanical forces ; from hour to 
hour in the balancing of functions ; from year to year in the 
changes of state that compensate changes of condition; and 
finally in the complete arrest of vital movements at death. 
Let us consider the facts under these heads. 

The sensible motion constituting each visible action of 
an organism, is soon brought to a close by some adverse force 
within or without the organism. "When the arm is raised, 
the motion given to it is antagonized partly by gravity and 
partly by the internal resistances consequent on structure; 
and its motion, thus suffering continual deduction, ends 
when the arm has reached a position at which the forces are 
equilibrated. The limits of each systole and diastole of the 
heart, severally show us a momentary equilibrium between 
muscular strains that produce opposite movements; and each 
gush of blood requires to be immediately followed by an- 
other, because the rapid dissipation of its momentum 
would otherwise soon bring the mass of circulating fluid fco 
a stand. As much in the actions and re-actions going on 
among the internal organs, as in the mechanical balanc- 



512 EQUILIBRATION. 

ing of the whole body, there is at every instant a pro- 
gressive equilibration of the motions at every instant pro- 
duced. Viewed in their aggregate, and as forming 
a series, the organic functions constitute a dependent mov- 
ing equilibrium — a moving equilibrium, of which the 
motive power is ever being dissipated through the special 
equilibrations just exemplified, and is ever being renewed 
by the taking in of additional motive power. Food is a 
store of force which continually adds to the momentum of 
the vital actions, as much as is continually deducted from 
them by the forces overcome. All the functional move- 
ments thus maintained, are, as we have seen, rhythmical 
(§ 85) ; by their union compound rhythms of various lengths 
and complexities are produced ; and in these simple and com- 
pound rhythms, the process of equilibration, besides being 
exemplified at each extreme of every rhythm, is seen in the 
habitual preservation of a constant mean, and in the re-estab- 
lishment of that mean when accidental causes have produced 
divergence from it. When, for instance, there is a great ex- 
penditure of motion through muscular activity, there arises 
a re-active demand on those stores of latent motion which are 
laid up in the form of consumable matter throughout the tis- 
sues : increased respiration and increased rapidity of circula- 
tion, are instrumental to an extra genesis of force, that coun- 
terbalances the extra dissipation of force. This unusual 
transformation of molecular motion into sensible motion, is 
presently followed by an unusual absorption of food — the 
source of molecular motion; and in proportion as there has 
been a prolonged draft upon the spare capital of the system, 
is there a tendency to a prolonged rest,, during which that 
spare capital is replaced. If the deviation from the ordinary 
course of the functions has been so great as to derange them, 
as when violent exertion produces loss of appetite and loss 
of sleep, an equilibration is still eventually effected. Pro- 
viding the disturbance is not such as to overturn the balance 
of the functions, and destroy life (in which case a complete 



EQUILIBRATION. 513 

equilibration is suddenly effected), the ordinary balance is 
by and by re-established: the returning appetite is keen in 
proportion as the waste has been large; while sleep, sound 
and prolonged, makes up for previous wakefulness. !N"ot 
even in those extreme cases where some excess has wrought 
a derangement that is never wholly rectified, is there an 
exception to the general law; for in such cases the cycle 
of the functions is, after a time, equilibrated about a new 
mean state, which henceforth becomes the normal state of 
the individual. Thus, among the involved rhythmical 
changes constituting organic life, any disturbing force that 
works an excess of change in some direction, is gradually 
diminished and finally neutralized by antagonistic forces; 
which thereupon work a compensating change in the oppo- 
site direction, and so, after more or less of oscillation, restore 
the medium condition. And this process it is, which 
constitutes what physicians call the vis medicatrix na- 
turae. The third form of equilibration displayed by 
organic bodies, is a necessary sequence of that just illustrated. 
When through a change of habit or circumstance, an organ- 
ism is permanently subject to some new influence, or differ- 
ent amount of an old influence, there arises, after more or 
less disturbance of the organic rhythms, a balancing of them 
around the new average condition produced by this addi- 
tional influence. As temporary divergences of the organic 
rhythms are counteracted by temporary divergences of a re- 
verse kind; so there is an equilibration of their permanent 
divergences by the genesis of opposing divergences that are 
equally permanent. If the quantity of motion to be ha- 
bitually generated by a muscle, becomes greater than before, 
its nutrition becomes greater than before. If the expendi- 
ture of the muscle bears to its nutrition, a greater ratio than 
expenditure bears to nutrition in other parts of the system; 
the excess of nutrition becomes such that the muscle grows. 
And the cessation of its growth is the establishment of a bal- 
ance between the daily waste and the daily repair — the 



514 EQUILIBRATION. 

daily expenditure of force, and the amount of latent force 
daily added. The like must manifestly be the case with 
all organic modifications consequent on change of climate 
or food. This is a conclusion which we may safely draw 
without knowing the special re-arrangements that effect the 
equilibration. If we see that a different mode of life is 
followed, after a period of functional derangement, by some 
altered condition of the system — if we see that this altered 
condition, becoming by and by established, continues with- 
out further change; we have no alternative but to say, that 
the new forces brought to bear on the system, have been 
compensated by the opposing forces they have evoked. 
And this is the interpretation of the process which we call 
adaptation. Finally, each organism illustrates the 

law in the ensemble of its life. At the outset it daily absorbs 
under the form of food, an amount of force greater than it 
daily expends; and the surplus is daily equilibrated by 
growth. As maturity is approached, this surplus dimin- 
ishes; and in the perfect organism, the day's absorption of 
potential motion balances the day's expenditure of actual 
motion. That is to say, during adult life, there is continu- 
ously exhibited an equilibration of the third order. Even- 
tually, the daily loss, beginning to out-balance the daily 
gain, there results a diminishing amount of functional ac- 
tion; the organic rhythms extend less and less widely on 
each side of the medium state ; and there finally results that 
complete equilibration which we call death. 

The ultimate structural state accompanying that ulti- 
mate functional state towards which an organism tends, both 
individually and as a species, may be deduced from one of 
the propositions set down in the opening section of this chap- 
ter. We saw that the limit of heterogeneity is arrived at 
whenever the equilibration of any aggregate becomes com- 
pile — that the re-distribution of matter can continue so 
long only as there continues any motion unbalanced. 
Whence we found it to follow that the final structural ar- 



EQUILIBRATION. 515 

rangements, must be such as will meet all the forces acting 
on the aggregate, by equivalent antagonistic forces. What is 
the implication in the case of organic aggregates; the equi- 
librium of which is a moving one? We have seen that the 
maintenance of such a moving equilibrium, requires the 
habitual genesis of internal forces corresponding in number, 
directions, and amounts to the external incident forces — as 
many inner functions, single or combined, as there are single 
or combined outer actions to be met. But functions are the 
correlatives of organs; amounts of functions are, other 
things equal, the correlatives of sizes of organs; and combi- 
nations of functions the correlatives of connections of or- 
gans. Hence the structural complexity accompanying 
functional equilibration, is definable as one in which there 
are as many specialized parts as are capable, separately and 
jointly, of counteracting the separate and joint forces amid 
which the organism exists. And this is the limit of organic 
heterogeneity; to which man has approached more nearly 
than any other creature. 

Groups of organisms display this universal tendency to- 
wards a balance very obviously. In § 85, every species of 
plant and animal was shown to be perpetually undergoing a 
rhythmical variation in number — now from abundance of 
food and absence of enemies rising above its average; and 
then by a consequent scarcity of food and abundance of ene- 
mies being depressed below its average. And here we have 
to observe that there is thus maintained an equilibrium be- 
tween the sum of those forces which result in the increase of 
each race, and the sum of those forces which result in its de- 
crease. Either limit of variation is a point at which the one 
set of forces, before in excess of the other, is counterbalanced 
by it. And amid these oscillations produced by their con- 
flict, lies that average- number of the species at which its 
expansive tendency is in equilibrium with surrounding re- 
pressive tendencies. \<>r can it be questioned that this bal- 
ancing of the preservative and destructive forces which 



516 EQUILIBRATION. 

we see going on in every race, must necessarily go on. Since 
increase of number cannot but continue until increase of 
mortality stops it; and decrease of number cannot but con- 
tinue until it is either arrested by fertility or extinguishes 
the race entirely. 

§ 174. The equilibrations of those nervous actions 
which constitute what we know as mental life, may be classi- 
fied in like manner with those which constitute what we dis- 
tinguish as bodily life. We may deal with them in the 
same order. 

Each pulse of nervous force from moment to moment 
generated, (and it was shown in § 86 that nervous currents 
are not continuous but rhythmical) is met by coun- 
teracting forces; in overcoming which it is dispersed and 
equilibrated. When tracing out the correlation and equiva- 
lence of forces, we saw that each sensation and emo- 
tion, or rather such part of it as remains after the exci- 
tation of associated ideas and feelings, is expended in 
working bodily changes — contractions of the involuntary 
muscles, the voluntary muscles, or both; as also in a cer- 
tain stimulation of secreting organs. That the movements 
thus initiated are ever being brought to a close by the oppos- 
ing forces they evoke, was pointed out above ; and here it is 
to be observed that the like holds with the nervous changes 
thus initiated. Various facts prove that the arousing of a 
thought or feeling, always involves the overcoming of a cer- 
tain resistance : instance the fact that where the association 
of mental states has not been frequent, a sensible effort is 
needed to call up the one after the other; instance the fact 
that during nervous prostration there is a comparative in- 
ability to think — the ideas will not follow one another with 
the habitual rapidity; instance the converse fact that at times 
of unusual energy, natural or artificial, the friction of 
thought becomes relatively small, and more numerous, more 
remote, or more difficult connections of ideas are formed. 



EQUILIBRATION. 517 

That is to say, the wave of nervous energy each instant gen- 
erated, propagates itself throughout body and brain, along 
those channels which the conditions at the instant render 
lines of least resistance; and spreading widely in proportion 
to its amount, ends only when it is equilibrated by the resist- 
ances it everywhere meets. If we contemplate men- 
tal actions as extending over hours and days, we discover 
equilibrations analogous to those hourly and daily estab- 
lished among the bodily functions. In the one case as in 
the other, there are rhythms which exhibit a balancing of 
opposing forces at each extreme, and the maintenance of a 
certain general balance. This is seen in the daily alterna- 
tion of mental activity and mental rest — the forces expend- 
ed during the one being compensated by the forces ac- 
quired during the other. It is also seen in the recurring 
rise and fall of each desire: each desire reaching a certain 
intensity, is equilibrated either by expenditure of the force 
it embodies, in the desired actions, or, less completely, in the 
imagination of such actions: the process ending in that sa- 
tiety, or that comparative quiescence, forming the opposite 
limit of the rhythm. And it is further manifest under a two- 
fold form, on occasions of intense joy or grief: each parox- 
ysm of passion, expressing itself in vehement bodily actions, 
presently reaches an extreme whence the counteracting 
forces produce a return to a condition of moderate excite- 
ment; and the successive paroxysms finally diminishing in 
intensity, end in a mental equilibrium either like that be- 
fore existing, or partially differing from it in its medium 
state. But the species of mental equilibration to be 
more especially noted, is that shown in the establishment of 
a correspondence between relations among our states of con- 
sciousness and relations in the external world. Each outer 
connection of phenomena which we are capable of perceiv- 
ing, generates, through accumulated experiences, an inner 
connection of mental state; and the result towards which 
this process tends, is the formation of a mental connection 



518 EQUILIBRATION. 

Laving a relative strength that answers to the relative con- 
stancy of the physical connection represented. In conform- 
ity with the general law that motion pursues the line of 
least resistance, and that, other things equal, a line once 
taken by motion is made a line that will be more readily 
pursued by future motion; we have seen that the ease with 
which nervous impressions follow one another, is, other 
things equal, great in proportion to the number of times 
they have been repeated together in experience. Hence, 
corresponding to such an invariable relation as that between 
the resistance of an object and some extension possessed 
by it, there arises an indissoluble connection in conscious- 
ness ; and this connection, being as absolute internally as the 
answering one is externally, undergoes no further change — 
the inner relation is in perfect equilibrium with the outer 
relation. Conversely, it hence happens that to such uncer- 
tain relations of phenomena as that between clouds and rain, 
there arise relations of ideas of a like uncertainty; and if, 
under given aspects of the sky, the tendencies to infer fair 
or foul weather, correspond to the frequencies with which 
fair or foul weather follow such aspects, the accumulation of 
experiences has balanced the mental sequences and the 
physical sequences. When it is remembered that between 
these extremes there are countless orders of external connec- 
tions having different degrees of constancy, and that during 
the evolution of intelligence there arise answering internal 
associations having different degrees of cohesion; it will be 
seen that there is a progress towards equilibrium between 
the relations of thought and the relations of things. This 
equilibration can end only when each relation of things 
has generated in us a relation of thought, such that on the 
occurrence of the conditions, the relation in thought arises 
as certainly as the relation in things. Supposing this state 
to be reached (which however it can be only in infinite time) 
experience will cease to produce any further mental evolu- 
tion- -there will have been reached a perfect correspondence 



EQUILIBRATION. 510 

between ideas and facts; and the intellectual adaptation of 
man to his circumstances will be complete. The 

like general truths are exhibited in the process of moral 
adaptation; which is a continual approach to equilibrium 
between the emotions and the kinds of conduct necessitated 
by surrounding conditions. The connections of feelings and 
actions, are determined in the same way as the connections 
of ideas : just as repeating the association of two ideas, facili- 
tates the excitement of the one by the other; so does each 
discharge of feeling into action, render the subsequent dis- 
charge of such feeling into such action more easy. Hence it 
happens that if an individual is placed permanently in condi- 
tions which demand more action of a special kind than has 
before been requisite, or than is natural to him — if the pres- 
sure of the painful feelings which these conditions entail 
when disregarded, impels him to perform this action to a 
greater extent — if by every more frequent or more length- 
ened performance of it under such pressure, the resistance is 
somewhat diminished ; then, clearly, there is an advance to- 
wards a balance between the demand for this kind of action 
and the supply of it. Either in himself, or in his descend- 
ants continuing to live under these conditions, enforced 
repetition must eventually bring about a state in which this 
mode of directing the energies will be no more repugnant 
than the various other modes previously natural to the 
race. Hence the limit towards which emotional modifica- 
tion perpetually tends, and to which it must approach indefi- 
nitely near (though it can absolutely reach it only in infinite 
time) is a combination of desires that correspond to all the 
(\'\ ffe rent orders of activity which the circumstances of life 
call for — desires severally proportionate in strength to the 
needs for these orders of activity; and severally satisfied 
by these orders of activity. In what we distinguish as 
acquired habits, and in the moral differences of races and 
nations produced by habits that are maintained through suc- 
cessive generations, we have countless illustrations of this 



520 EQUILIBRATION. 

progressive adaptation; which can cease only with the estab- 
lishment of a complete equilibrium between constitution and 
conditions. 

Possibly some will fail to see how the equilibrations de- 
scribed in this section, can be classed with those preceding 
them; and will be inclined to say that what are here set 
down as facts, are but analogies. Nevertheless such equili- 
brations are as truly physical as the rest. To show this 
fully, would require a more detailed analysis than can now 
be entered on. For the present it must suffice to point out, as 
before (§ 71), that what we know subjectively as states of 
consciousness, are, objectively, modes of force; that so much 
feeling is the correlate of so much motion ; that the perform- 
ance of any bodily action is the transformation of a certain 
amount of feeling into its equivalent amount of motion ; that 
this bodily action is met by forces which it is expended in 
overcoming; and that the necessity for the frequent repeti- 
tion of this action, implies the frequent recurrence of forces 
to be so overcome. Hence the existence in any individual of 
an emotional stimulus that is in equilibrium with certain ex- 
ternal requirements, is literally the habitual production of a 
certain specialized portion of nervous energy, equivalent in 
amount to a certain order of external resistances that are 
habitually met. And thus the ultimate state, forming the 
limit towards which Evolution carries us, is one in which the 
kinds and quantities of mental energy daily generated and 
transformed into motions, are equivalent to, or in equilib- 
rium with, the various orders and degrees of surrounding 
forces which antagonize such motions. 

§ 175. Each society taken as a whole, displays the pro- 
cess of equilibration in the continuous adjustment of its 
population to its means of subsistence. A tribe of men liv- 
ing on wild animals and fruits, is manifestly, like every 
tribe of inferior creatures, always oscillating about that 
average number which the locality can support. Though 



EQUILIBRATION. 521 

by artificial production, and by successive improvements in 
artificial production, a superior race continually alters the 
limit which external conditions put to population ; yet there 
is ever a checking of population at the temporary limit 
reached. It is true that where the limit is being so rapidly 
changed as among ourselves, there is no actual stoppage: 
there is only a rhythmical variation in the rate of increase. 
But in noting the causes of this rhythmical variation — in 
watching how, during periods of abundance, the proportion 
of marriages increases, and how it decreases during periods 
of scarcity ; it will be seen that the expansive force produces 
unusual advance whenever the repressive force diminishes, 
and vice versa; and thus there is as near balancing of the 
two as the changing conditions permit. 

The internal actions constituting social functions, exem- 
plify the general principle no less clearly. Supply and de- 
mand are continually being adjusted throughout all indus- 
trial processes; and this equilibration is interpretable in the 
same way as preceding ones. The production and distribu- 
tion of a commodity, is the expression of a certain aggregate 
of forces causing special kinds and amounts of motion. The 
price of this commodity, is the measure of a certain other 
aggregate of forces expended by the labourer who purchases 
it, in other kinds and amounts of motion. And the varia- 
tions of price represent a rhythmical balancing of these 
forces. Every rise or fall in the rate of interest, or change 
in the value of a particular security, implies a cpnflict of 
forces in which some, becoming temporarily predominant, 
cause a movement that is presently arrested or equilibrated 
by the increase of opposing forces; and amid these daily and 
hourly oscillations, lies a more slowly-varying medium, into 
which the value ever tends to settle; and would settle but for 
the constant addition of new influences. As in the 

individual organism so in the social organism, functional 
equilibrations generate structural equilibrations; When on 
the workers in any trade there comes an increased demand, 
35 



522 EQUILIBRATION. 

and when in return for the increased supply, there is given to 
them an amount of other commodities larger than was before 
habitual — when, consequently, the resistances overcome by 
them in sustaining life are less than the resistances overcome 
by other workers; there results a flow of other workers into 
this trade. This flow continues until the extra demand is 
met, and the wages so far fall again, that the total resistance 
overcome in obtaining a given amount of produce, is as 
great in this newly-adopted occupation as in the occupations 
whence it drew recruits. The occurrence of motion along 
lines of least resistance, was before shown to necessitate the 
growth of population in those places where the labour re- 
quired for self -maintenance is the smallest ; and here we fur- 
ther see that those engaged in any such advantageous local- 
ity, or advantageous business, must multiply till there arises 
an approximate balance between this locality or business and 
others accessible to the same citizens. In determining 
the career of every youth, we see an estimation by parents of 
the respective advantages offered by all that are available, 
and a choice of the one which promises best; and through 
the consequent influx into trades that are at the time most 
profitable, and the withholding of recruits from over-stocked 
trades, there is insured a general equipoise between the 
power of each social organ and the function it has to per- 
form. 

The various industrial actions and re-actions thus con- 
tinually alternating, constitute a dependent moving equi- 
librium like that which is maintained among the functions 
of an individual organism. And this dependent moving 
equilibrium parallels those already contemplated, in its 
tendency to become more complete. During early stages of 
social evolution, while yet the resources of the locality in- 
habited are unexplored, and the arts of production undevel- 
oped, there is never anything more than a temporary and 
partial balancing of such actions, under the form of accelera- 
tion or retardation of growth. But when a society ap- 



EQUILIBRATION. 593 

proaches the maturity of that type on which it is organized, 
the various industrial activities settle down into a compara- 
tively constant state. Moreover, it is observable that advance 
in organization, as well as advance in growth, is conducive 
to a better equilibrium of industrial functions. While the 
diffusion of mercantile information is slow, and the means of 
transport deficient, the adjustment of supply to demand is 
extremely imperfect: great over-production of each com- 
modity followed by great under-production, constitute a 
rhythm having extremes that depart very widely from the 
mean state in which demand and supply are equilibrated. 
But when good roads are made, and there is a rapid diffusion 
of printed or written intelligence, and still more when rail- 
ways and telegraphs come into existence — when the periodi- 
cal fairs of early days lapse into weekly markets, and these 
into daily markets ; there is gradually produced a better bal- 
ance of production and consumption. Extra demand is 
much more quickly followed by augmented supply ; and the 
rapid oscillations of price within narrow limits on either side 
of a comparatively uniform mean, indicate a near approach 
to equilibrium. Evidently this industrial progress 

has for its limit, that which Mr. Mill has called " the sta- 
tionary state." When population shall have become dense 
over all habitable parts of the globe ; when the resources of 
every region have been fully explored; and when the pro- 
ductive arts admit of no further improvements; there must 
result an almost complete balance, both between the fertility 
and mortality of each society, and between its producing and 
consuming activities. Each society will exhibit only minor 
deviations from its average number, and the rhythm of its 
industrial functions will go on from day to day and year 
to year with comparatively insignificant perturbations. This 
limit, however, though we are inevitably advancing towards 
it, is indefinitely remote; and can never indeed be absolutely 
reached. The peopling of the Earth up to the point sup- 
posed, cannot take place by simple spreading. In the fu- 



524 EQUILIBRATION". 

ture, as in the past, the process will be carried on rhythmical- 
ly? by waves of emigration from new and higher centres of 
civilization successively arising; and by the supplanting of 
inferior races by the superior races they beget; and the 
process so carried on must be extremely slow, l^or does 
it seem to me that such an equilibration will, as Mr. Mill 
suggests, leave scope for further mental culture and moral 
progress; but rather that the approximation to it must be 
simultaneous with the approximation to complete equilib- 
rium between man's nature and the conditions of his ex- 
istence. 

One other kind of social equilibration has still to be con- 
sidered : — that which results in the establishment of govern- 
mental institutions, and which becomes complete as these 
institutions fall into harmony with ihe desires of the people. 
There is a demand and supply in political affairs as in in- 
dustrial affairs; and in the one case as in the other, the antag- 
onist forces produce a rhythm which, at first extreme in its 
oscillations, slowly settles down into a moving equilibrium 
of comparative regularity. Those aggressive impulses in- 
herited from the pre-social state — those tendencies to seek 
self-satisfaction regardless of injury to other beings, which 
are essential to a predatory life, constitute an anti-social 
force, tending ever to cause conflict and eventual separation 
of citizens. Contrariwise, those desires whose ends can be 
achieved only by union, as well as those sentiments which 
find satisfaction through intercourse with fellow-men, and 
those resulting in what we call loyalty, are forces tending 
to keep the units of a society together. On the one hand, 
there is in each citizen, more or less of resistance against 
all restraints imposed on his actions by other citizens: a re- 
sistance which, tending continually to widen each indi- 
vidual's sphere of action, and reciprocally to limit the 
spheres of action of other individuals, constitutes a repul- 
sive force mutually exercised by the members of a social 
aggregate. On the other hand, the general sympathy of 



EQUILIBRATION. 525 

man for man, and the more special sympathy of each vari- 
ety of man for others of the same variety, together with 
sundry allied feelings which the social state gratifies, act 
as an attractive force, tending ever to keep united those who 
have a common ancestry. And since the resistances to be 
overcome in satisfying the totality of their desires when 
living separately, are greater than the resistances to be over- 
come in satisfying the totality of their desires when living 
together, there is a residuary force that prevents their sepa- 
ration. Like all other opposing forces, those exerted by 
citizens on each other, are ever producing alternating move- 
ments, which, at first extreme, undergo a gradual diminu- 
tion on the way to ultimate equilibrium. In small, unde- 
veloped societies, marked rhythms result from these con- 
flicting tendencies. A tribe whose members have held 
together for a generation or two, reaches a size at which it 
will not hold together ; and on the occurrence of some event 
causing unusual antagonism among its members, divides. 
Each primitive nation, depending largely for its continued 
union on the character of its chief, exhibits wide oscilla- 
tions between an extreme in which the subjects are under 
rigid restraint, and an extreme in which the restraint is 
not enough to prevent disorder. In more advanced nations 
of like type, we always find violent actions and reactions of 
the same essential nature — " despotism tempered by assas- 
sination/' characterizing a political state in which unbear- 
able repression from time to time brings about a bursting 
of all bonds. In this familiar fact, that a period of tyranny 
is followed by a period of license and vice versa, we see how 
these opposing forces are ever equilibrating each other; and 
we also see, in the tendency of such movements and counter- 
movements to become more moderate, how the equilibra- 
tion progresses towards completeness. The conflicts be- 
tween Conservatism (which stands for the restraints of so- 
ciety over the individual) and Reform (which stands for 
the liberty of the individual against society), fall within 



526 EQUILIBRATION. 

slowly approximating limits; so that the temporary pre- 
dominance of either, produces a less marked deviation from 
the medium state. This process, now so far ad- 

vanced among ourselves that the oscillations are compara- 
tively unobtrusive, must go on till the balance between the 
antagonistic forces approaches indefinitely near perfection. 
For, as we have already seen, the adaptation of man's nature 
to the conditions of his existence, cannot cease until the in- 
ternal forces which we know as feelings are in equilibrium 
with the external forces they encounter. And the establish- 
ment of this equilibrium, is the arrival at a state of human 
nature and social organization, such that the individual has 
no desires but those which may be satisfied without exceed- 
ing his proper sphere of action, while society maintains no 
restraints but those which the individual voluntarily re- 
spects. The progressive extension of the liberty of citizens, 
and the reciprocal removal of political restrictions, are the 
steps by which we advance towards this state. And the ulti- 
mate abolition of all limits to the freedom of each, save those 
imposed by the like freedom of all, must result from the 
complete equilibration between man's desires and the con- 
duct necessitated by surrounding conditions. 

Of course in this case, as in the preceding ones, there is 
thus involved a limit to the increase of heterogeneity. A 
few pages back, we reached the conclusion that each advance 
in mental evolution, is the establishment of some further 
internal action, corresponding to some further external ac- 
tion — some additional connection of ideas or feelings, an- 
swering to some before unknown or unantagonized con- 
nection of phenomena. We inferred that each such new 
function, involving some new modification of structure, 
implies an increase of heterogeneity; and that thus, in- 
crease of heterogeneity must go on, while there remain any 
outer relations affecting the organism which are unbalanced 
by inner relations. Whence we saw it to follow that in- 
crease of heterogeneity can come to an end only as equilibra- 



EQUILIBRATION. 527 

tion is completed. Evidently the like must simultaneously 
take place with society. Each increment of heterogeneity 
in the individual, must directly or indirectly involve, as 
cause or consequence, some increment of heterogeneity in 
the arrangements of the aggregate of individuals. And the 
limit to social complexity can be arrived at, only with the 
establishment of the equilibrium, just described, between 
social and individual forces. 

§ 176. Here presents itself a final question, which has 
probably been taking a more or less distinct shape in the 
minds of many, while reading this chapter. " If Evolution 
of every kind, is an increase in complexity of structure and 
function that is incidental to the universal process of equili- 
bration, and if equilibration must end in complete rest; 
what is the fate towards which all things tend ? If the Solar 
System is slowly dissipating its forces — if the Sun is losing 
his heat at a rate which will tell in millions of years — if 
with diminution of the Sun's radiations there must go on a 
diminution in the activity of geologic and meteorologic 
processes as well as in the quantity of vegetal and animal 
existence — if Man and Society are similarly dependent on 
this supply of force that is gradually coming to an end ; are 
we not manifestly progressing towards omnipresent death? " 

That such a state must be the outcome of the processes 
everywhere going on, seems beyond doubt. Whether any 
ulterior process may reverse these changes, and initiate a 
new life, is a question to be considered hereafter. For the 
present it must suffice that the proximate end of all the 
transformations we have traced, is a state of quiescence. 
This admits of a priori proof. It will soon become apparent 
that the law of equilibration, not less than the preceding 
general laws, is deducible from the persistence of force. 

We have seen (% 74) that phenomena arc interpretable 
only as the results of universally-coexistcul forces of attrac- 
tion and repulsion. These universally-coexistent forces of 



528 EQUILIBRATION. 

attraction and repulsion, are, indeed, the complementary as- 
pects of that absolutely persistent force which is the ultimate 
datum of consciousness. Just in the same way that the 
equality of action and re-action is a corollary from the per- 
sistence of force, since their inequality would imply the dis- 
appearance of the differential force into nothing, or its ap- 
pearance out of nothing ; so, we cannot become conscious of 
an attractive force without becoming simultaneously con- 
scious of an equal and opposite repulsive force. For every 
experience of a muscular tension, (under which form alone 
we can immediately know an attractive force,) presupposes 
an equivalent resistance — a resistance shown in the counter- 
balancing pressure of the body against neighbouring objects, 
or in that absorption of force which gives motion to the 
body, or in both — a resistance which we cannot conceive as 
other than equal to the tension, without conceiving force to 
have either appeared or disappeared, and so denying the 
persistence of force. And from this necessary correlation, 
results our inability, before pointed out, of interpreting 
any phenomena save in terms of these correlatives — an ina- 
bility shown alike in the compulsion we are under to think of 
the statical forces which tangible matter displays, as due 
to the attraction and repulsion of its atoms, and in the com- 
pulsion we are under to think of dynamical forces exercised 
through space, by regarding space as filled with atoms simi- 
larly endowed. Thus from the existence of a force that is 
for ever unchangeable in quantity, there follows, as a neces- 
sary corollary, the co-extensive existence of these opposite 
forms of force — forms under which the conditions of our 
consciousness oblige us to represent that absolute force 
which transcends our knowledge. 

But the forces of attraction and repulsion being univer- 
sally co-existent, it follows, as before shown, that all motion 
is motion under resistance. Units of matter, solid, liquid, 
aeriform, or ethereal, filling the space which any moving 
body traverses, oiler to such body the resistance consequent 



EQUILIBRATION. 529 

on their cohesion, or their inertia, or both. In other words, 
the denser or rarer medium which occupies the places from 
moment to moment passed through by such moving body, 
having to be expelled from them, as much motion is ab- 
stracted from the moving body as is given to the medium in 
expelling it from these places. This being the condition 
under which all motion occurs, two corollaries result. The 
first is, that the deductions perpetually made by the com- 
munication of motion to the resisting medium, cannot but 
bring the motion of the body to an end in a longer or shorter 
time. The second is, that the motion of the body cannot 
cease until these deductions destroy it. In other words, 
movement must continue till equilibration takes place; and 
equilibration must eventually take place. Both these are 
manifest deductions from the persistence of force. To say 
that the whole or part of a body's motion can disappear, save 
by transfer to something which resists its motion, is to say 
that the whole or part of its motion can disappear without 
effect; which is to deny the persistence of force. Con- 
versely, to say that the medium traversed can be moved out 
of the body's path, without deducting from the body's mo- 
tion, is to say that motion of the medium can arise out of 
nothing; which is to deny the persistence of force. Hence 
this primordial truth is our immediate warrant for the con- 
clusions, that the changes which Evolution presents, cannot 
end until equilibrium is reached ; and that equilibrium must 
at last be reached. 

Equally necessary, because equally deducible from this 
same truth that transcends proof, are the foregoing proposi- 
tions respecting the establishment and maintenance of mov- 
ing equilibria, under their several aspects. It follows from 
the persistence of force, that the various motions possessed 
by any aggregate, either as a whole or among its parts, must 
bo severally dissipated by the resistances tiny severally en- 
counter; and that thus, such of them as are least in amount, 
or meet with greatest opposition, or both, will be brought to 



530 EQUILIBRATION. 

a close while the others continue. Hence in every diversely 
moving aggregate, there results a comparatively early dissi- 
pation of motions which are smaller and much resisted ; fol- 
lowed by long-continuance of the larger and less-resisted 
motions; and so there arise dependent and independent 
moving equilibria. Hence also may be inferred the tend- 
ency to conservation of such moving equilibria. For the 
new motion given to the parts of a moving equilibrium by 
a disturbing force, must either be of such kind and amount 
that it cannot be dissipated before the pre-existing motions, 
in which case it brings the moving equilibrium to an end; 
or else it must be of such kind and amount that it can be 
dissipated before the pre-existing motions, in which case 
the moving equilibrium is re-established. 

Thus from the persistence of force follow, not only the 
various direct and indirect equilibrations going on around, 
together with that cosmical equilibration which brings Evo- 
lution under all its forms to a close; but also those less 
manifest equilibrations shown in the re-adjustments of 
moving equilibria that have been disturbed. By this ulti- 
mate principle is provable the tendency of every organism, 
disordered by some unusual influence, to return to a bal- 
anced state. To it also may be traced the capacity, pos- 
sessed in a slight degree by individuals, and in a greater 
degree by species becoming adapted to new circumstances. 
And not less does it afford a basis for the inference, that 
there is a gradual advance towards harmony between man's 
mental nature and the conditions of his existence. After 
finding that from it are deducible the various characteristics 
of Evolution, we finally draw from it a warrant for the 
belief, that Evolution can end only in the establishment of 
the greatest perfection and the most complete happiness. 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

DISSOLUTION. 

§ 177. When, in Chapter XII. , we glanced at the cycle 
of changes through which every existence passes, in its pro- 
gress from the imperceptible to the perceptible and again 
from the perceptible to the imperceptible — when these 
opposite re-distributions of matter and motion were sev- 
erally distinguished as Evolution and Dissolution; the na- 
tures of the two, and the conditions under which they 
respectively occur, were specified in general terms. Since 
then, we have contemplated the phenomena of Evolution in 
detail ; and have followed them out to those states of equilib- 
rium in which they all end. To complete the argument 
we must now contemplate, somewhat more in detail than 
before, the complementary phenomena of Dissolution. 
Xot, indeed, that we need dwell long on Dissolution, which 
has none of those various and interesting aspects which Evo- 
lution presents; but something more must be said than has 
yet been said. 

It was shown that neither of these two antagonistic pro- 
cesses ever goes on absolutely unqualified by the other; 
and that a change towards either is a differential result of 
the conflict between them. An evolving aggregate, while 
on the average losing motion and integrating, is always, in 
one way or other, receiving some motion and to that extent 
disintegrating; and after the integrative changes have 
ceased to predominate, the reception of motion, though 



532 DISSOLUTION. 

perpetually checked by its dissipation, constantly tends to 
produce a reverse transformation, and eventually does pro- 
duce it. When Evolution has run its course — when the 
aggregate has at length parted with its excess of motion, 
and habitually receives as much from its environment as it 
habitually loses — when it has reached that equilibrium in 
which its changes end; it thereafter remains subject to all 
actions in its environment which may increase the quantity 
of motion it contains, and which in the lapse of time are 
sure, either slowly or suddenly, to give its parts such excess 
of motion as will cause disintegration. According as its 
equilibrium is a very unstable or a very stable one, its dis- 
solution may come quickly or may be indefinitely delayed — 
may occur in a few days or may be postponed for millions of 
years. But exposed as it is to the contingencies not simply 
of its immediate neighbourhood but of a Universe every- 
where in motion, the period must at last come when, either 
alone or in company with surrounding aggregates, it has its 
parts dispersed. 

The process of dissolution so caused, we have here to look 
at as it takes place in aggregates of different orders. The 
course of change being the reverse of that hitherto traced, 
we may properly take the illustrations of it in the reverse 
order — beginning with the most complex and ending with 
the most simple. 

§ 178. Regarding the evolution of a society as at once 
an increase in the number of individuals integrated into a 
corporate body, an increase in the masses and varieties of 
the parts into which this corporate body divides as well as 
of the actions called their functions, and an increase in the 
degree of combination among these masses and their func- 
tions; we shall see that social dissolution conforms to the 
general law in being, materially considered, a disintegration, 
and, dynamically considered, a decrease in the movements 
of wholes and an increase in the movements of parts; while 



DISSOLUTION. 533 

it further conforms to the general law in being caused by 
an excess of motion in some way or other received from 
without. 

It is obvious that the social dissolution which follows the 
aggression of another nation, and which, as history shows 
us, is apt to occur when social evolution has ended and 
decay has begun, is, under its broadest aspect, the incidence 
of a new external motion ; and when, as sometimes happens, 
the conquered society is dispersed, its dissolution is literally 
a cessation of those corporate movements which the society, 
both in its army and in its industrial bodies, presented, 
and a lapse into individual or uncombined movements — 
the motion of units replaces the motion of masses. 

It cannot be questioned, either, that when plague or 
famine at home, or a revolution abroad, gives to any society 
an unusual shock that causes disorder, or incipient dissolu- 
tion, there results a decrease of integrated movements and 
an increase of disintegrated movements. As the disorder 
progresses, the political actions previously combined under 
one government become uncombined: there arise the an- 
tagonistic actions of riot or revolt. Simultaneously, the in- 
dustrial and commercial processes that were co-ordinated 
throughout the whole body politic, are broken up; and only 
the local, or small, trading transactions continue. And each 
further disorganizing change diminishes the joint opera- 
tions by which men satisfy their wants, and leaves them to 
satisfy their wants, so far as they can, by separate opera- 
tions. Of the way in which such disintegrations 
are liable to be set up in a society that has evolved to the 
limit of its type, and reached a state of moving equilibrium, 
a good illustration is furnished by Japan. The finished 
fabric into which its people had organized themselves, main- 
tained an almost constant state so long as it was preserved 
from fresh external forces. But as soon as it received an 
impact from European civilization, partly by armed aggres- 
sion, partly by commercial impulse, partly by the influence 



534 DISSOLUTION. 

of ideas, this fabric began to fall to pieces. There is now in 
progress a political dissolution. Probably a political re- 
organization will follow; but, be this as it may, the change 
thus far produced by an outer action is a change towards 
dissolution — a change from integrated motions to disinte- 
grated motions. 

Even where a society that has developed into the highest 
form permitted by the characters of its units, begins there- 
after to dwindle and decay, the progressive dissolution is 
still essentially, of the same nature. Decline of numbers is, 
in such case, brought about partly by emigration; for a 
society having the fixed structure in which evolution ends, 
is necessarily one that will not yield and modify under 
pressure of population: so long as its structure will yield 
and modify, it is still evolving. Hence the surplus popula- 
tion continually produced, not held together by an organiza- 
tion that adapts itself to an augmenting number, is contin- 
ually dispersed: the influences brought to bear on the citi- 
zens by other societies, cause their detachment, and there is 
an increase in the uncombined motions of units instead of an 
increase of combined motions. Gradually as rigidity be- 
comes greater, and the society becomes still less capable of 
being re-moulded into the form required for successful 
competition with growing and more plastic societies, the 
number of citizens who can live within its unyielding frame- 
work becomes positively smaller. Hence it dwindles both 
through continued emigration and through the diminished 
multiplication that follows innutrition. And this further 
dwindling or dissolution, caused by the number of those 
who die becoming greater than the number of those who 
survive long enough to rear offspring, is similarly a decrease 
in the total quantity of combined motion and an increase 
in the quantity of uncombined motion — as we shall pres- 
ently see when we come to deal with individual dissolution. 

Considering, then, that social aggregates differ so much 
from aggregates of other kinds, formed as they are of units 



DISSOLUTION. 535 

held together loosely and indirectly, in such variable ways 
by such complex forces, the process of dissolution among 
them confornis to the general law quite as clearly as could 
be expected. 

§ 179. ^vVhen from these super-organic aggregates we 
descend to organic aggregates, the truth that Dissolution is 
a disintegration of matter, caused by the reception of ad- 
ditional motion from without, becomes easily demonstrable. 
We will look first at the transformation and afterwards at 
its cause. 

Death, or that final equilibration which precedes dissolu- 
tion, is the bringing to a close of all those conspicuous 
integrated motions that arose during evolution. The im- 
pulsions of the body from place to place first cease; pres- 
ently the limbs cannot be stirred; later still the respira- 
tory actions stop; finally the heart becomes stationary, and, 
with it, the circulating fluids. That is, the transformation 
of molecular motion into the motion of masses, comes to 
an end; and each of these motions of masses, as it ends, 
disappears into molecular motions. AVhat next takes place ? 
^Ve cannot say that there is any further transformation of 
sensible movements into insensible movements; for sensible 
movements no longer exist. Xevertheless, the process of 
decay involves an increase of insensible movements; since 
these are far greater in the gases generated by decomposi- 
tion, than they are in the fluid-solid matters out of which the 
gases arise. Each of the complex chemical units composing 
an organic body, possesses a rhythmic motion in which its 
many component units jointly partake. AVhen decomposi- 
tion breaks up these complex molecules, and their constitu- 
ents assume gaseous forms, there is, besides that increase of 
motion implied by the diffusion, a resolution of such mo- 
tions as the aggregate molecules possessed, into motions 
of their constituent molecules. So that in organic dissolu- 
tion we have, first, an end put to that transformation of the 



536 DISSOLUTION. 

motion of units into the motion of aggregates, which con- 
stitutes evolution, dynamically considered; and we have 
also, though in a subtler sense, a transformation of the 
motion of aggregates into the motion of units. Still it is 
not thus shown that organic dissolution fully answers to the 
general definition of dissolution — the absorption of motion 
and concomitant disintegration of matter. The disintegra- 
tion of matter is, indeed, conspicuous enough; but the ab- 
sorption of motion is not conspicuous. True, the fact that 
motion has been absorbed may be inferred from the fact 
that the particles previously integrated into a solid mass, 
occupying a small space, have most of them moved away 
from one another and now occupy a great space; for the 
motion implied by this transposition must have been ob- 
tained from somewhere. But its source is not obvious. A 
little search, however, will bring us to its derivation. 

At a temperature below the freezing point of water, de- 
composition of organic matter does not take place — the 
integrated motions of the highly integrated molecules are 
not resolved into the disintegrated motions of their com- 
ponent molecules. Dead bodies kept at this temperature 
for an indefinitely long period, are prevented from decom- 
posing for an indefinitely long period: witness the frozen 
carcases of Mammoths — Elephants of a species long ago 
extinct — that are found imbedded in the ice at the mouths 
of Siberian rivers; and which, though they have been there 
for many thousands of years, have flesh so fresh that when 
at length exposed, it is devoured by wolves. What now is 
the meaning of such exceptional preservations? A body 
kept below freezing point, is a body which receives very 
little heat by radiation or conduction; and the reception of 
but little heat is the reception of but little molecular motion. 
That is to say, in an environment which does not furnish it 
villi molecular motion passing a certain amount, an organic 
body does not undergo dissolution. Confirmatory 

evidence is yielded by the variations in rate of dissolution 



DISSOLUTION. 537 

which accompany variations of temperature. All know that 
in cool weather the organic substances used in our house- 
holds keep longer, as we say, than in hot weather. Equally 
certain, if less familiar, is the fact that in tropical climates 
decay proceeds much more rapidly than in temperate cli- 
mates. Thus, in proportion as the molecular motion of 
surrounding matter is great, the dead organism receives an 
abundant supply of motion to replace the motion continually 
taken up by the dispersing molecules of the gases into 
which it is being disintegrated. The still quicker 

decompositions produced by exposure to artificially-raised 
temperatures, afford further proofs; as instance those which 
occur in cooking. The charred surfaces of parts that have 
been much heated, show us that the molecular motion ab- 
sorbed has served to dissipate in gaseous forms all the ele- 
ments but the carbon. 

The nature and cause of Dissolution are thus clearly dis- 
played by the aggregates which so clearly display the na- 
ture and cause of Evolution. One of these aggregates being 
composed of that peculiar matter to which a large quantity 
of constitutional motion gives great plasticity, and the abil- 
ity to evolve into a highly compound form (§ 103); we see 
that after evolution has ceased, a very moderate amount 
of molecular motion, added to that already locked up in 
its peculiar matter, suffices to cause dissolution. Though 
at death there is reached a stable equilibrium among the 
sensible masses, or organs, which make up the body; yet, 
as the insensible units or molecules of which these organs 
consist are in unstable equilibrium, small incident forces 
suffice to overthrow them, and hence disintegration pro- 
ceeds rapidly. 

§ 180. Most inorganic aggregates, having arrived at 
dense forms in which comparatively little motion is retained, 
remain long without marked changes. Each lias lost so 

much motion in passing from the disintegrated to the into- 



538 DISSOLUTION. 

grated state, that much motion must be given to it* to 
cause resumption of the disintegrated state; and an im- 
mense time may elapse before there occur in the environ- 
ment, changes great enough to communicate to it the requi- 
site quantity of motion. We will look first at those excep- 
tional inorganic aggregates which retain much motion, and 
therefore readily undergo dissolution. 

Among these are the liquids and volatile solids which 
dissipate under ordinary conditions — water that evaporates, 
carbonate of ammonia that wastes away by the dispersion of 
its molecules. In all such cases motion is absorbed; and 
always the dissolution is rapid in proportion as the quantity 
of heat or motion which the aggregated mass receives from 
its environment is great. ~Next come the cases in 

which the molecules of a highly integrated or solid aggre- 
gate, are dispersed among the molecules of a less integrated 
or liquid aggregate ; as in aqueous solutions. One evidence 
that this disintegration of matter has for its concomitant 
the absorption of motion, is that soluble substances dissolve 
the more quickly the hotter the water: supposing always 
that no elective affinity comes into play. Another and still 
more conclusive evidence is, that when crystals of a given 
temperature are placed in water of the same temperature, 
the process of solution is accompanied by a fall of tempera- 
ture — often a very great one. Omitting instances in which 
some chemical action takes place between the salt and the 
water, it is a uniform law that the motion which disperses 
the molecules of the salt through the water, is at the expense 
of the molecular motion possessed by the water. 

Masses of sediment accumulated into strata, afterwards 
compressed by many thousands of feet of superincumbent 
strata, and reduced in course of time to a solid state, 
may remain for millions of years unchanged; but in sub- 
sequent millions of years they are inevitably exposed to 
disintegrating actions. Raised along with oilier Buch masses 
into a continent, denuded and exposed to rain, frost, and 



DISSOLUTION". 539 

the grinding actions of glaciers, they have their particles 
gradually separated, carried away, and widely dispersed. 
Or when, as otherwise happens, the encroaching sea reaches 
them, the undermined cliffs which they form fall from time 
to time, breaking into fragments of all sizes; the waves, 
rolling about the small pieces, and in storms turning over 
and knocking together the larger blocks, reduce them to 
boulders and pebbles, and at last to sand and mud. Even if 
portions of the disintegrated strata accumulate into shingle 
banks, which afterwards become solidified, the process of 
dissolution, arrested though it may be for some enormous 
geologic period, is finally resumed. As many a shore shows 
us, the conglomerate itself is sooner or later subject to the 
like processes; and its cemented masses of heterogeneous 
components, lying on the beach, are broken up and worn 
away by impact and attrition — that is, by communicated 
mechanical motion. 

When not thus affected, the disintegration is effected by 
communicated molecular motion. The consolidated stra- 
tum, located in some area of subsidence, and brought down 
nearer and nearer to the regions occupied by molten matter, 
comes eventually to have its particles brought to a plastic 
state by heat, or finally melted down into liquid. Whatever 
may be its subsequent transformations, the transformation 
then exhibited by it is an absorption of motion and disinte- 
gration of matter. 

Be it simple or compound, small or large, a crystal or a 
mountain chain, every inorganic aggregate on the Earthy 
thus, at some time or other, undergoes a reversal of those 
changes undergone during its evolution. Not that it usually 
passes back completely from the perceptible into the imper- 
ceptible; as organic aggregates do in great part, if not 
wholly. But -till its disintegration and dispersion carry 
it some distance on the way towards the imperceptible; and 
there are reasons for thinking that its arrival there is but 
delayed. At a period immeasurably remote, every such 



540 DISSOLUTION". 

inorganic aggregate, along with all undissipated remnants 
of organic aggregates, must be reduced to a state 
of gaseous diffusion, and so complete the cycle of its 
changes. 

§ 181. For the Earth as a whole, when it has gone 
through the entire series of its ascending transformations, 
must remain, like all smaller aggregates, exposed to the 
contingencies of its environment ; and in the course of those 
ceaseless changes in progress throughout a Universe of 
which all parts are in motion, must, at some period be- 
yond the utmost stretch of imagination, be subject to forces 
sufficient to cause its complete disintegration. Let us glance 
at the forces competent to disintegrate it. 

In his essay on " The Inter-action of Natural Forces," 
Prof. Helmholtz states the thermal equivalent of the Earth's 
movement through space, as calculated on the now received 
datum of Mr. Joule. " If our Earth," he says, " were by a 
sudden shock brought to rest in her orbit, — which is not to 
be feared in the existing arrangement of our system — by 
such a shock a quantity of heat would be generated equal 
to that produced by the combustion of fourteen such Earths 
of solid coal. Making the most unfavourable assumption 
as to its capacity for heat, that is, placing it equal to that 
of water, the mass of the Earth would thereby be heated 
11,200 degrees; it would therefore be quite fused, and for 
the most part reduced to vapour. If then the Earth, after 
having been thus brought to rest, should fall into the 
Sun, which of course would be the case, the quan- 
tity of heat developed by the shock would be 400 times 
greater." Now though this calculation seems to 

be nothing to the purpose, since the Earth is not likely 
to be suddenly arrested in its orbit and not likely there- 
fore suddenly to fall into the Sun; yet, as before pointed 
out. fg 171), there is a force at work which it is held must 
a1 List bring the Earth into the Sun. This force is the re- 



DISSOLUTION. 541 

sistance of the ethereal medium. From ethereal resistance 
is inferred a retardation of all moving bodies in the Solar 
System — a retardation which certain astronomers contend 
even now shows its effects in the relative nearness to one 
another of the orbits of the older planets. If, then, retarda- 
tion is going on, there must come a time, no matter how 
remote, when the slowly diminishing orbit of the Earth will 
end in the Sun; and though the quantity of molar motion 
to be then transformed into molecular motion, will not be 
so great as that which the calculation of Helmholtz supposes, 
it will be great enough to reduce the substance of the Earth 
to a gaseous state. 

This dissolution of the Earth, and, at intervals, of every 
other planet, is not, however, a dissolution of the Solar 
System. Viewed in their ensemble, all the changes ex- 
hibited throughout the Solar System, are incidents accom- 
panying the integration of the entire matter composing it: 
the local integration of which each planet is the scene, 
completing itself long before the general integration is 
complete. But each secondary mass having gone through 
its evolution and reached a state of equilibrium among its 
parts, thereafter continues in its extinct state, until by the 
still progressing general integration it is brought into the 
central mass. And though each such union of a secondary 
mass with the central mass, implying transformation of 
molar motion into molecular motion, causes partial dif- 
fusion of the total mass formed, and adds to the quantity of 
motion that lias to be dispersed in the shape of light and 
heat; yet it does but postpone the period at which the total 
mass must become completely integrated, and its exce 
contained motion radiated into space. 



*§ 182. Here we come to the question raised at the 
close el" the last chapter — docs Evolution as a whole, like 



* Though this chapter is new, tlii j section, and the one following it, arc 
not new. In the first edition they were included in the final section of ihe 



5^2 DISSOLUTION. 

Evolution in detail, advance towards complete quiescence? 
Is that motionless state called death, which ends Evolution 
in organic bodies, typical of the universal death in which 
Evolution at large must end ? And have we thus to contem- 
plate as the outcome of things, a boundless space holding 
here and there extinct suns, fated to remain for ever with- 
out further change ? 

To so speculative an inquiry, none but a speculative 
answer is to be expected. Such answer as may be ventured, 
must be taken less as a positive answer than as a demurrer 
to the conclusion that the proximate result must be the 
ultimate result. If, pushing to its extreme the argument 
that Evolution must come to a close in complete equilibrium 
or rest, the reader suggests that for aught which appears to 
the contrary, the Universal Death thus implied will con- 
tinue indefinitely, it is legitimate to point out how, on 
carrying the argument still further, we are led to infer a 
subsequent Universal Life. Let us see what may be as- 
signed as grounds for inferring this. 

It has been already shown that all equilibration, so far 
as we can trace it, is relative. The dissipation of a body's 
motion by communication of it to surrounding matter, solid, 
liquid, gaseous, and ethereal, brings the body to a fixed 
position in relation to the matter that abstracts its motion. 
But all its other motions continue. Further, this motion, 
the disappearance of which causes relative equilibration, is 
not lost but simply transferred. Whether it is directly 
transformed into insensible motion, as happens in the case 
of the Sun; or, whether, as in the sensible motions going 
on around us, it is directly transformed into smaller sensible 
motions, and these into still smaller, until they become in- 
sensible, matters not. In every instance the ultimate result 
is, that whatever motion of masses is lost, re-appears as 

foregoing chapter. While substantially the same as before, the argument 
ha* boon in some place9 abbreviated and in other places enforced by addi- 
tional matter. 



DISSOLUTION. 543 

molecular motion pervading space. Thus the questions we 
have to consider, are — Whether after the completion of all 
the relative equilibrations which bring Evolution to a close, 
there remain any further equilibrations to be effected? — 
Whether there are any other motions of masses that must 
eventually be transformed into molecular motion? — And if 
there are such other motions, what must be the consequence 
when the molecular motion generated by their transforma- 
tion, is added to that which already exists? 

To the first of these questions the answer is, that there do 
remain motions which are undiminished by all the relative 
equilibrations we have considered; namely, the motions of 
translation possessed by those vast masses of matter called 
stars — remote suns that are probably, like our own, sur- 
rounded by circling groups of planets. The belief that the 
stars are fixed, has long since been abandoned: observation 
has proved many of them to have sensible proper motions. 
Moreover, it has been ascertained by measurement that in 
relation to the stars nearest to us, our own star travels at 
the rate of about half a million miles per day; and if, as is 
admitted to be not improbable, our own star is moving in 
the same direction with adjacent stars, its absolute velocity 
may be, and most likely is, immensely greater than this. 
Now no such changes as those taking place within the Solar 
System, even when carried to the extent of integrating the 
whole of its matter into one mass, and diffusing all its 
relative motions in an insensible form through space, can 
affect these sidereal motions. Hence, there appears no alter- 
native but to infer that they must remain to be equilibrated 
by some subsequent process. 

The next question that arises is — To what law do sidereal 
motions conform? And to this question Astronomy replies 
— the law of gravitation. The movements of binary stars 
have proved this. The periodic times of sundry binary stars 
have been calculated on the assumption that their revolu- 
tions are determined by a force like that which regulates the 



544: DISSOLUTION. 

revolutions of planets and satellites ; and the subsequent per- 
formances of their revolutions in the predicted periods, have 
verified the assumption. If, then, these remote bodies are 
centres of gravitation, — if we infer that all other stars are 
centres of gravitation, as we may fairly do — and if we draw 
the unavoidable corollary, that the gravitative force which 
so conspicuously affects stars that are near one another, 
also affects remote stars; we must conclude that all the 
members of our Sidereal System gravitate, individually and 
collectively. 

But if these widely-dispersed moving masses mutually 
gravitate, what must happen? There appears but one ten- 
able answer. They cannot preserve their present arrange- 
ment: the irregular distribution of our Sidereal System 
being such as to render even a temporary moving equi- 
librium impossible. If the stars are centres of an attractive 
force that varies inversely as the square of the distance, 
there is no escape from the inference that the structure of 
our galaxy is undergoing change, and must continue to 
undergo change. 

Thus, in tlie absence of tenable alternatives, we are 
brought to the positions: — 1, that the stars are in motion; 
— 2, that they move in conformity with the laws of gravita- 
tion; — 3, that, distributed as they are, they cannot move in 
conformity with the law of gravitation, without under- 
going re-arrangement. If now we ask the nature of this 
re-arrangement, we find ourselves obliged to infer a pro- 
gressive concentration. Stars at present dispersed, must 
become locally aggregated; existing aggregations (except- 
ing, perhaps, the globular clusters) must grow more dense; 
and aggregations must coalesce with one another. That 
integration lias been progressing throughout past eras, we 
found to be indicated by the structure of the heavens, in 
general and in detail; and of the extent to which it has in 
some places already gone, remarkable instances are fur- 
nished by the Magellanic clouds — two closely-packed ag- 



DISSOLUTION. 54 



DxO 



glomerations, not, indeed, of single stars only, but of single 
stars, of clusters regular and irregular, of nebulaa, and of dif- 
fused nebulosity. That these have been formed by mutual 
gravitation of parts once widely scattered, there is evidence 
in the barrenness of the surrounding celestial spaces: the 
nubecula minor, especially, being seated, as Humboldt says, 
in " a kind of starless desert." 

"What must be the limit of such concentrations? The 
mutual attraction of two stars, when it so far predominates 
over other attractions as to cause approximation, almost 
certainly ends in the formation of a binary star; since the 
motions generated by other attractions prevent the two 
stars from moving in straight lines to their common centre 
of gravity. Between small clusters, too, having also certain 
proper motions as clusters, mutual attraction may lead, not 
to complete union, but to the formation of binary clusters. 
As the process continues, however, and the clusters become 
larger, they must move more directly towards each other: 
thus forming clusters of increasing density. While, there- 
fore, during the earlier stages of concentration, the proba- 
bilities are immense against the actual contact of these 
mutually-gravitating masses; it is tolerably manifest that, 
as the concentration increases, collision must become proba- 
ble, and ultimately certain. This is an inference not lack- 
ing the support of high authority. Sir John Herschel, 
treating of those numerous and variously-aggregated clus- 
ters of stars revealed by the telescope, and citing with 
apparent approval his father's opinion, that the more dif- 
fused and irregular of these, are " globular clusters in a less 
advanced state of condensation; " subsequently remarks, 
thai " among a crowd of solid bodies of whatever size, ani- 
mated by independenl and partially opposing impulses, mo- 
tions opposite i" each other must produce collision, destruc- 
tion of velocity, and subsidence or uear approach towards 
the centre of preponderant attraction; while those which 
conspire, or which remain outstanding after such conflicts, 



54G DISSOLUTION. 

must ultimately give rise to circulation of a permanent 
character." JN T ow what is here alleged of these minor 
clusters, cannot be denied of larger clusters; and thus the 
above-inferred process of concentration, appears certain to 
bring about an increasingly-frequent integration of masses. 
We have next to consider the consequences of the accom- 
panying loss of velocity. The sensible motion which disap- 
pears cannot be destroyed, but must be transformed into 
insensible motion. What will be the effect of this insensible 
motion? Already we have seen that were the Earth ar- 
rested, dissipation of its substance would result. And if 
so relatively small a momentum as that acquired by the 
Earth in falling to the Sun, would be equivalent to a molecu- 
lar motion sufficient to reduce the Earth to gases of ex- 
treme rarity ; what must be the molecular motion generated 
by the mutually-arrested momenta of two stars, that have 
moved to their common centre of gravity through spaces 
immeasurably greater? There seems no alternative but to 
conclude, that it would be great enough to reduce the 
matter of the stars to an almost inconceivable tenuity — a te- 
nuity like that which we ascribe to nebular matter. Such 
being the immediate effect, what would be the ulterior ef- 
fect? Sir John Herschel, in the passage above quoted, de- 
scribing the collisions that must arise in a concentrating 
group of stars, adds that those stars " which remain out- 
standing after such conflicts must ultimately give rise to cir- 
culation of a permanent character.'' The problem, however, 
is here dealt with purely as a mechanical one: the assump- 
tion being that the mutually-arrested masses will continue 
as masses — an assumption to which no objection appeared 
at the time when Sir John Herschel wrote this passage; 
since the correlation of forces was not then recognized. 
But obliged as we now are to conclude, that stars moving 
at the high velocities acquired during concentration, will, 
by mutual arrest, be dissipated into gases, the problem 
becomes different; and a different inference seems unavoid- 



DISSOLUTION. 547 

able. For the diffused matter produced by such conflicts 
must form a resisting medium, occupying that central re- 
gion of the cluster through which its members from time 
to time pass in describing their orbits — a resisting medium 
which they cannot move through without having their ve- 
locities diminished. Every additional collision, by augment- 
ing this resisting medium, and making the losses of velocity 
greater, must aid in preventing the establishment of that 
equilibrium which would else arise; and so must conspire 
to produce more frequent collisions. And the nebulous 
matter thus formed, presently enveloping the whole cluster, 
must, by continuing to shorten the gyrations of the moving 
masses, entail an increasingly active integration and re- 
active disintegration of them; until they are all dis- 
sipated. "Whether this process completes itself inde- 
pendently in different parts of our Sidereal System; or 
whether it completes itself only by aggregating the whole 
matter of our Sidereal System; or whether, as seems not 
unlikely, local integrations and disintegrations run their 
courses while the general integration is going on; are ques- 
tions that need not be discussed. In any case the conclu- 
sion to be drawn is, that the integration must continue until 
the conditions which bring about disintegration are reached ; 
and that there must then ensue a diffusion that undoes the 
preceding concentration. This, indeed, is the con- 
clusion which presents itself as a deduction from the persist- 
ence of force. If stars concentrating to a common centre of 
gravity, eventually reach it, then the quantities of motion 
they have acquired must suffice to carry them away again to 
those remote regions whence they started. And since, by 
the conditions of the case, they cannot return to these remote 
regions in the shape of concrete masses, they must return 
in the shape of diffused masses. Action and reaction being 
equal and opposite, the momentum producing dispersion, 
must be as great as the momentum acquired by abrogation; 
and being spread over the same quantity of matter, must 



548 DISSOLUTION. 

cause an equivalent distribution through space, whatever be 
the form of the matter. ' One condition, however, 

essential to the literal fulfilment of this result, must be 
specified; namely, that the quantity of molecular motion 
radiated into space by each star in the course of its forma- 
tion from diffused matter, shall either not escape from our 
Sidereal System or shall be compensated by an equal quan- 
tity of molecular motion radiated from other parts of space 
into our Sidereal System. In other words, if we set out 
with that amount of molecular motion implied by the exist- 
ence of the matter of our Sidereal System in a nebulous 
form; then it follows from the persistence of force, that if 
this matter undergoes the re-distribution constituting Evo- 
lution, the quantity of molecular motion given out during 
the integration of each mass, plus the quantity of molecular 
motion given out during the integration of all the masses, 
must suffice again to reduce it to the same nebulous form. 

Here, indeed, we arrive at a barrier to our reasonings; 
since we cannot know whether this condition is or is not 
fulfilled. If the ether which fills the interspaces of our 
Sidereal System has a limit somewhere beyond the outer- 
most stars, then it is inferrable that motion is not lost by 
radiation beyond this limit; and if so, the original degree 
of diffusion may be resumed. Or supposing the ethereal 
medium to have no such limit, yet, on the hypothesis of an 
unlimited space, containing, at certain intervals, Sidereal 
Systems like our own, it may be that the quantity of molecu- 
lar motions radiated into the region occupied by our Sidereal 
System, is equal to that which our Sidereal System radiates; 
in which case the quantity of motion possessed by it, re- 
maining undiminished, it may continue during unlimited 
time its alternate concentrations and diffusions. But if, 
on the other hand, throughout boundless space filled with 
ether, there exist no other Sidereal Systems subject to like 
changes, or if such other Sidereal Systems exist at more 
than a certain average distance from one another; then it 



DISSOLUTION". 549 

seems an unavoidable conclusion that the quantity of mo- 
tion possessed, must diminish by radiation; and that so, 
on each successive resumption of the nebulous form, the 
matter of our Sidereal System will occupy a less space; 
until it reaches either a state in which its concentrations 
and diffusions are relatively small, or a state of complete 
aggregation and rest. Since, however, we have no evidence 
showing the existence or non-existence of Sidereal Systems 
throughout remote space; and since, even had we such evi- 
dence, a legitimate conclusion could not be drawn from 
premises of which one clement (unlimited space) is incon- 
ceivable; we must be for ever without answer to this tran- 
scendent question. 

But confining ourselves to the proximate and not neces- 
sarily insoluble question, we find reason for thinking that 
after the completion of those various equilibrations which 
bring to a close all the forms of Evolution we have contem- 
plated, there must continue an equilibration of a far wider 
kind. When that integration everywhere in progress 
throughout our Solar System has reached its climax, there 
will remain to be effected the immeasurably greater inte- 
gration of our Solar System, with other such systems. 
There must then re-appear in molecular motion what is lost 
in the motion of masses; and the inevitable transformation 
of this motion of masses into molecular motion, cannot take 
place without reducing the masses to a nebulous form. 

§ 183. Thus we are led to the conclusion that the 
entire process of things, as displayed in the aggregate of 
the visible Universe, is analogous to the entire process of 
things as displayed in the smallest aggregates. 

Motion as well as Matter being fixed in quantity, it 
would seem that the change in the distribution of Matter 
which Motion affects, coming to a limit in whichever direc- 
tion it is carried, the indestructible Motion thereupon neces- 
sitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally- 



550 DISSOLUTION. 

co-existent forces of attraction and repulsion, which, as we 
have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes through- 
out the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of 
its changes — produce now an immeasurable period during 
which the attractive forces predominating, cause universal 
concentration, and then an immeasurable period during 
which the repulsive forces predominating, cause universal 
diffusion — alternate eras of Evolution and Dissolution. 
And thus there is suggested the conception of a past during 
which there have been successive Evolutions analogous to 
that which is now going on; and a future during which 
successive other such Evolutions may go on — ever the same 
in principle but never the same in concrete result. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

§ 184. At the close of a work like this, it is more than 
usually needful to contemplate as a whole that which the 
successive chapters have presented in parts. A coherent 
knowledge implies something more than the establishment 
of connexions; we must not rest after seeing how each 
minor group of truths fall into its place within some major 
group, and how all the major groups fit together. It is 
requisite that we should retire a space, and, looking at the 
entire structure from a distance at which details are lost to 
view, observe its general character. 

Something more than recapitulation — something more 
even than an organized re-statement, will come within the 
scope of the chapter. We shall find that in their ensemble 
the general truths reached exhibit, under certain aspects, a 
oneness not hitherto observed. 

There is, too, a special reason for noting how the various 
divisions and sub-divisions of the argument consolidate; 
namely, that the theory at large thereby obtains a final 
illustration. The reduction of the generalizations that have 
been set forth to a completely integrated state, exemplifies 
once more the process of Evolution, and strengthens still 
further the general fabric of conclusions. 

§ isr>. Here, indeed, we find ourselves broughl round 
unexpectedly, and very significantly, to the truth with 

55 1 



i>o 



2 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 



which we set out, and with which our re-survey must com- 
mence. For this integrated form of knowledge is the form 
which, apart from the doctrine of Evolution, we decided to 
be the highest form. 

When we inquired what constitutes Philosophy — when 
Ave compared men's various conceptions of Philosophy, so 
that, eliminating the elements in which they differed we 
might see in what they agreed; we found in them all, the 
tacit implication that Philosophy is completely unified 
knowledge. Apart from each particular scheme of unified 
knowledge, and apart from the proposed methods by which 
unification is to be effected, we traced in every case the be- 
lief that unification is possible, and that the end of Philoso- 
phy is the achievement of it. 

Accepting this conclusion, we went on to consider the 
data with which Philosophy must set out. Fundamental 
propositions, or propositions not deducible from deeper ones, 
can be established only by showing the complete congruity 
of all the results reached through the assumption of them; 
and, premising that they were assumed till so established, 
we took as our data, those organized components of our in- 
telligence without which there cannot go on the mental 
processes implied by philosophizing. 

From the specification of these we passed to certain 
primary truths — " The Indestructibility of Matter," " The 
Continuity of Motion," and " The Persistence of Force; " 
of which the last is ultimate and the others derivative. 
Having previously seen that our experiences of Matter and 
Motion are resolvable into experiences of Force ; we further 
saw the truths that Matter and Motion are unchangeable in 
quantity, to be implications of the truth that Force is un- 
changeable in quantity. This we discovered is the truth 
1 »y deri ration from which all other truths are to be proved. 

The first of the truths which presented itself to be so 
proved, was "The Persistence of the Relations among 
Forces." This, which is ordinarily called Uniformity of 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 553 

Law, we found to be a necessary implication of the fact that 
Force can neither arise out of nothing nor lapse into 
nothing. 

The deduction next drawn, was that forces which seem 
to be lost are transformed into their equivalents of other 
forces ; or, conversely, that forces which become manifest, do 
so by disappearance of pre-existing equivalent forces. Of 
these truths we found illustrations in the motions of the 
heavenly bodies, in the changes going on over the Earth's 
surface, and in all organic and super-organic actions. 

It turned out to be the same with the law that every- 
thing moves along the line of least resistance, or the line of 
greatest traction, or their resultant. Among movements of 
all orders, from those of stars down to those of nervous dis- 
charges and commercial currents, it was shown both that 
this is so, and that, given the Persistence of Force, it must 
be so. 

So, too, we saw it to be with " The Rhythm of Motion." 
All motion alternates — be it the motion of planets in their 
orbits or ethereal molecules in their undulations — be it the 
cadences of speech or the rises and falls of prices; and, as 
before, it became manifest that Force being persistent, this 
perpetual reversal of Motion between limits is inevitable. 

§ 186. These truths holding of all existences, were 
recognized as of the kind required to constitute what we 
distinguished as Philosophy. But, on considering them, we 
perceived that as they stand they do not form anything like 
a Philosophy; and that a Philosophy cannot be formed by 
any number of such truths separately known. Each such 
truth expresses the general law of some one factor by which 
phenomena, as we habitually experience them, are pro- 
duced; or, at most, expresses the law of co-operation of 
some two factors. But knowing what are the elements of a 
process, is not knowing how these elements combine to 
effect it. That which alone can unify knowledge must be 
37 



554 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

the law of co-operation of all the factors — a law expressing 
simultaneously the complex antecedents and the complex 
consequents which any phenomena as a whole presents. 

A further inference was that Philosophy, as we under- 
stand it, must not unify separate concrete phenomena only; 
and must not stop short with unifying separate classes of 
concrete phenomena; but must unify all concrete phenom- 
ena. If the law of operation of each factor holds true 
throughout the Cosmos; so, too, must the law of their co- 
operation. And hence in comprehending the Cosmos as 
conforming to this law of co-operation, must consist that 
highest unification which Philosophy seeks. 

Descending from this abstract statement to a concrete 
one, we saw that the law sought must be the law of the 
continuous re-distribution of Matter and Motion. The 
changes everywhere going on, from those which are slowly 
altering the structure of our galaxy down to those which 
constitute a chemical decomposition, are changes in the 
relative positions of component parts ; and everywhere neces- 
sarily imply that along with a new arrangement of Matter 
there has arisen a new arrangement of Motion. Hence we 
may be certain, a priori, that there must be a law of the 
concomitant re-distribution of Matter and Motion, which 
holds of every change; and which, by thus unifying all 
changes, must be the basis of a Philosophy. 

In commencing our search for this universal law of re- 
distribution, we contemplated from another point of view 
the problem of Philosophy; and saw that its solution could 
not but be of the nature indicated. It was shown that a 
Philosophy stands self-convicted of inadequacy, if it does 
not formulate the whole series of changes passed through 
by every existence in its passage from the imperceptible to 
the perceptible and again from the perceptible to the im- 
perceptible. If it begins its explanations with existences 
that already have concrete forms, or leaves off while they 
still retain concrete forms; then, manifestly, they had pre- 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 555 

ceding histories, or will have succeeding histories, or both, 
of which no account is given. And as such preceding and 
succeeding histories are subjects of possible knowledge, a 
Philosophy which says nothing about them, falls short of the 
required unification. Whence we saw it to follow that the 
formula sought, equally applicable to existences taken sin- 
gly and in their totality, must be applicable to the whole his- 
tory of each and to the whole history of all. 

By these considerations we were brought within view 
of the formula. For if it had to comprehend the entire 
progress from the imperceptible to the perceptible and 
from the perceptible to the imperceptible; and if it was 
also to express the continuous re-distribution of Matter 
and Motion; then, obviously, it could be no other than one 
defining the opposite processes of concentration and diffu- 
sion in terms of Matter and Motion. And if so, it must be a 
statement of the truth that the concentration of Matter 
implies the dissipation of Motion, and that, conversely, the 
absorption of Motion implies the diffusion of Matter. 

Such, in fact, we found to be the law of the entire cycle 
of changes passed through by every existence — loss of mo- 
tion and consequent integration, eventually followed by 
gain of motion and consequent disintegration. And we saw 
that besides applying to the whole history of each existence, 
it applies to each detail of the history. Both processes are 
going on at every instant; but always there is a differential 
result in favour of the first or the second. And every 
change, even though it be only a transposition of parts, 
inevitably advances the one process or the other. 

Evolution and Dissolution, as we name these opposite 
transformations, though thus truly defined in their most 
general characters, are but incompletely defined; or rather, 
while the definition of Dissolution is sufficient, the definition 
of Evolution is extremely insufficient. Evolution is always 
an integration of Matter and dissipation of Motion; but it 
is in most cases much more than this. The primary re- 



556 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

distribution of Matter and Motion is usually accompanied 
by secondary re-distributions. 

Distinguishing the different kinds of Evolution so pro- 
duced as simple and compound, we went on to consider 
under what conditions the secondary re-distributions which 
make Evolution compound, take place. We found that a 
concentrating aggregate which loses its contained motion 
rapidly, or integrates quickly, exhibits only simple Evolu- 
tion; but in proportion as its largeness, or the peculiar con- 
stitution of its components, hinders the dissipation of its 
motion, its parts, while undergoing that primary re-distribu- 
tion which results in integration, undergo secondary re- 
distributions producing more or less complexity. 

§ 187. From this conception of Evolution and Dissolu- 
tion as together making up the entire process through which 
things pass; and from this conception of Evolution as 
dividing into simple and compound ; we went on to consider 
the law of Evolution, as exhibited among all orders of 
existences, in general and in detail. 

The integration of Matter and concomitant dissipation of 
Motion, was traced not in each whole only, but in the parts 
into which each whole divides. By the aggregate Solar 
System, as well as by each planet and satellite, progressive 
concentration has been, and is still being, exemplified. In 
each organism that general incorporation of dispersed ma- 
terials which causes growth, is accompanied by local in- 
corporations, forming what we call organs. Every society 
while it displays the aggregative process by its increasing 
mass of population, displays it also by the rise of dense 
masses in special parts of its area. And in all cases, along 
with these direct integrations there go the indirect inte- 
grations by which parts are made mutually dependent. 

From this primary re-distribution we were led on to 
consider the secondary re-distributions, by inquiring how 
there came to be a formation of parts during the formation 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 557 

of a whole. It turned out that there is habitually a passage 
from homogeneity to heterogeneity, along with the passage 
from diffusion to concentration. While the matter com- 
posing the Solar System has been assuming a denser form, it 
has changed from unity to variety of distribution. So- 
lidification of the Earth has been accompanied by a pro- 
gress from comparative uniformity to extreme multiformity. 
In the course of its advance from a germ to a mass of rela- 
tively great bulk, every plant and animal also advances from 
simplicity to complexity. The increase of a society in 
numbers and consolidation has for its concomitant an in- 
creased heterogeneity both of its political and its industrial 
organization. And the like holds of all super-organic pro- 
ducts — Language, Science, Art, and Literature. 

But we saw that these secondary re-distributions are not 
thus completely expressed. At the same time that the parts 
into which each whole is resolved become more unlike one 
another, they also become more sharply marked off. The 
result of the secondary re-distributions is therefore to change 
an indefinite homogeneity into a definite heterogeneity. 
This additional trait also we found to be traceable in evolv- 
ing aggregates of all orders. Further consideration, how- 
ever, made it apparent that the increasing definiteness 
which goes along with increasing heterogeneity, is not an 
independent trait; but that it results from the integration 
which progresses in each of the differentiating parts, while 
it progresses in the whole they form. 

Further, it was pointed out that in all evolutions, 
inorganic, organic, and super-organic, this change in the 
arrangement of Matter is accompanied by a parallel change 
in the arrangement of Motion: every increase in structural 
complexity involving a corresponding increase in func- 
tional complexity. It was shown that along with the 
integration of molecules into masses, there arises an integra- 
tion of molecular motion into the motion of masses; and 
that as fast as there results variety in the sizes and forms of 



55S SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

aggregates and their relations to incident forces, there also 
results variety in their movements. 

The transformation thus contemplated under separate 
aspects, being in itself but one transformation, it became 
needful to unite these separate aspects into a single concep- 
tion — to regard the primary and secondary re-distributions 
as simultaneously working their various effects. Every- 
where the change from a confused simplicity to a distinct 
complexity, in the distribution of both matter and motion, 
is incidental to the consolidation of the matter and the loss 
of its motion. Hence the re-distribution of the matter and 
of its retained motion, is from a diffused, uniform, and in- 
determinate arrangement, to a concentrated, multiform, and 
determinate arrangement. 

§ 188. We come now to one of the additions that may be 
made to the general argument while summing it up. Here 
is the fit occasion for observing a higher degree of unity in 
the foregoing inductions, than we observed while making 
them. 

The law of Evolution has been thus far contemplated as 
holding true of each order of existences, considered as a 
separate order. But the induction as so presented, falls 
short of that completeness which it gains when we con- 
template these several orders of existences as forming 
together one natural whole. While we think of Evolution 
as divided into astronomic, geologic, biologic, psychologic, 
sociologic, &c, it may seem to a certain extent a coincidence 
that the same law of metamorphosis holds throughout all its 
divisions. But when we recognize these divisions as mere 
conventional groupings, made to facilitate the arrangement 
and acquisition of knowledge — when we regard the different 
existences with which they severally deal as component 
parts of one Cosmos; we see at once that there are not 
several l<in<l* of Evolution having certain traits in common, 
bat one Evolution going on everywhere after the same 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 559 

manner. We have repeatedly observed that while any 
whole is evolving, there is always going on an evolution of 
the parts into which it divides itself; but we have not 
observed that this equally holds of the totality of things, as 
made up of parts within parts from the greatest down to 
the smallest. We know that while a physically-cohering 
aggregate like the human body is getting larger and taking 
on its general shape, each of its organs is doing the same; 
that while each organ is growing and becoming unlike 
others, there is going on a differentiation and integration 
of its component tissues and vessels; and that even the 
components of these components are severally increasing 
and passing into more definitely heterogeneous structures. 
But we have not duly remarked that, setting out with the 
human body as a minute part, and ascending from it to 
greater parts, this simultaneity of transformation is equally 
manifest — that while each individual is developing, the so- 
ciety of which he is an insignificant unit is developing too ; 
that while the aggregate mass forming a society is becom- 
ing more definitely heterogeneous, so likewise is that total 
aggregate, the Earth, of which the society is an inapprecia- 
ble portion; that while the Earth, which in bulk is not a 
millionth of the Solar System, progresses towards its concen- 
trated and complex structure, the Solar System similarly 
progresses; and that even its transformations are but those 
of a scarcely appreciable portion of our Sidereal System, 
which has at the same time been going through parallel 
changes. 

So understood, Evolution becomes not one in principle 
only, but one in fact. There are not many metamorphoses 
similarly carried on; but there is a single metamorphosis 
universally progressing, wherever the reverse metamorpho- 
sis has not set in. In any locality, meat or small, through- 
out space, where the occupying matter acquires an apprecia- 
ble individuality, or distinguishableness from other matter, 
there Evolution goes on; or rather, the acquirement of this 



560 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

appreciable individuality is the commencement of Evolu- 
tion. And this holds uniformly; regardless of the size of the 
aggregate, regardless of its inclusion in other aggregates, 
and regardless of the wider evolutions within which its own 
is comprehended. 

§ 189. After making them, we saw that the inductions 
which, taken together, establish the law of Evolution, do 
not, so long as they remained inductions, form coherent 
parts of that whole rightly named Philosophy; nor does 
even the foregoing passage of these inductions from agree- 
ment into identity, suffice to produce the unity sought. 
Eor, as was pointed out at the time, to unify the truths 
thus reached with other truths, it is requisite to deduce 
them from the Persistence of Eorce. Our next step, 
therefore, was to show why, Eorce being persistent, the 
transformation which Evolution shows us necessarily re- 
sults. 

The first conclusion arrived at was, that any finite 
homogeneous aggregate must inevitably lose its homoge- 
neity, through the unequal exposure of its parts to inci- 
dent forces. It was pointed out that the production of 
diversities of structure by diverse forces, and forces acting 
under diverse conditions, has been illustrated in astronomic 
evolution; and that a like connection of cause and effect 
is seen in the large and small modifications undergone by 
our globe. The early changes of organic germs supplied 
further evidence that unlikenesses of structure follow un- 
likenesses of relations to surrounding agencies — evidence 
enforced by the tendency of the differently-placed mem- 
bers of each species to diverge into varieties. And we found 
that the contrasts, political and industrial, which arise be- 
tween the parts of societies, serve to illustrate the same 
principle. The instability of the homogeneous thus every- 
where exemplified, we also saw holds in each of the dis- 
tinguishable parts into which any uniform whole lapses; 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 561 

and that so the less heterogeneous tends continually to be- 
come more heterogeneous. 

A further step in the inquiry disclosed a secondary cause 
of increasing multiformity. Every differentiated part is 
not simply a seat of further differentiations, but also a parent 
of further differentiations; since, in growing unlike other 
parts, it becomes a centre of unlike reactions on incident 
forces, and by so adding to the diversity of forces at work, 
adds to the diversity of effects produced. This multiplica- 
tion of effects proved to be similarly traceable throughout 
all Nature — in the actions and reactions that go on through- 
out the Solar System, in the never-ceasing geologic com- 
plications, in the involved symptoms produced in organisms 
by disturbing influences, in the many thoughts and feelings 
generated by single impressions, and in the ever-ramifying 
results of each new agency brought to bear on a society. 
To which was added the corollary, confirmed by abundant 
facts, that the multiplication of effects advances in a geo- 
metrical progression along with advancing heterogeneity. 

Completely to interpret the structural changes constitut- 
ing Evolution, there remained to assign a reason for that 
increasingly-distinct demarcation of parts, which accompa- 
nies the production of differences among parts. This reason 
we discovered to be, the segregation of mixed units under 
the action of forces capable of moving them. We saw that 
when unlike incident forces have made the parts of an 
aggregate unlike in the natures of their component units, 
there necessarily arises a tendency to separation of the dis- 
similar units from one another, and to a clustering of those 
units which arc similar. This cause of the local integra- 
tions that accompany local differentiations, turned out to 
be likewise exemplified by all kinds of Evolution — by the 
formation of celestial bodies, by the moulding of the Earth's 
crust, by organic modifications, by the establishment of 
mental distinctions, by the genesis of social divisions. 

At length, to the query whether these processes have any 



502 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

limit, there came the answer that they must end in equili- 
brium. That continual division and subdivision of forces, 
which changes the uniform into the multiform and the 
multiform into the more multiform, is a process by which 
forces are perpetually dissipated; and dissipation of them, 
continuing as long as there remain any forces unbalanced 
by opposing forces, must end in rest. It was shown that 
when, as happens in aggregates of various orders, many 
movements are going on together, the earlier dispersion 
of the smaller and more resisted movements, establishes 
moving equilibria of different kinds: forming transitional 
stages on the way to complete equilibrium. And further 
inquiry made it apparent that for the same reason, these 
moving equilibria have certain self -conserving powers; 
shown in the neutralization of perturbations, and the ad- 
justment to new conditions. This general principle of 
equilibration, like the preceding general principles, was 
traced throughout all forms of Evolution — astronomic, 
geologic, biologic, mental and social. And our concluding 
inference was, that the penultimate stage of equilibration, in 
which the extremest multiformity and most complex mov- 
ing equilibrium are established, must be one implying the 
highest conceivable state of humanity. 

But the fact which it here chiefly concerns us to remem- 
ber, is that each of these laws of the re-distribution of Hat- 
ter and Motion, was found to be a derivative law — a law dc- 
ducible from the fundamental law. The Persistence of 
Force being granted, there follow as inevitable inferences 
" The Instability of the Homogeneous " and " The Multi- 
plication of Effects; " while " Segregation " and " Equili- 
bration " also become corollaries. And thus discovering 
that the processes of change formulated under these titles 
are so many different aspects of one transformation, deter- 
mined by an ultimate necessity, we arrive at a complete uni- 
fication of them — a synthesis in which Evolution in general 
and in detail becomes known as an implication of the law 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 563 

that transcends proof. Moreover, in becoming thus unified 
with one another, the complex truths of Evolution become 
simultaneously unified with those simpler truths shown to 
have a like affiliation — the equivalence of transformed 
forces, the movement of every mass and molecule along its 
line of least resistance, and the limitation of its motion by 
rhythm. "Which further unification brings us to a concep- 
tion of the entire plexus of changes presented by each con- 
crete phenomenon, and by the aggregate of concrete phe- 
nomena, as a manifestation of one fundamental fact — a fact 
shown alike in the total change and in all the separate 
changes composing it. 

§ 190. Finally we turned to contemplate, as exhibited 
throughout Xature, that process of Dissolution which forms 
the complement of Evolution; and which inevitably, at 
some time or other, undoes what Evolution has done. 

Quickly following the arrest of Evolution in aggregates 
that are unstable, and following it at periods often long 
delayed but reached at last in the stable aggregates around 
us, we saw that even to the vast aggregate of which all 
these are parts — even to the Earth as a whole — Dissolution 
must eventually arrive. Nay we even saw grounds for the 
belief that the far vaster masses dispersed at almost im- 
measurable intervals through space, will, at a time beyond 
the reach of finite imaginations, share the same fate; and 
that so universal Evolution will be followed by universal 
Dissolution — a conclusion which, like those preceding it, 
we saw to be deducible from the Persistence of Force. 

It may be added thai in so unifying the phenomena of 
Dissolution with those of Evolution, aa being manifestations 
of the same ultimate law under opposite conditions, wo a] to 
unify the phenomena presented by the existing Universe 
witli the like phenomena that have preceded them and will 
succeed them — so far, at [east, ae Buch unification is possible 
to our limited intelligences. For if, as we saw reason to 



564 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

think, there is an alternation of Evolution and Dissolution 
in the totality of things — if, as we are obliged to infer from 
the Persistence of Force, the arrival at either limit of this 
vast rhythm brings about the conditions under which a 
counter-movement commences — if we are hence compelled 
to entertain the conception of Evolutions that have filled 
an immeasurable past and Evolutions that will fill an im- 
measurable future ; we can no longer contemplate the visible 
creation as having a definite beginning or end, or as being 
isolated. It becomes unified with all existence before and 
after ; and the Force which the Universe presents, falls* into 
the same category with its Space and Time, as admitting of 
no limitation in thought. 

§ 191. So rounding off the argument, we find its result 
brought into complete coalescence with the conclusion 
reached in Part I. ; where, independently of any inquiry 
like the foregoing, we dealt with the relations between the 
Knowable and the Unknowable. 

It was there shown by analysis of both our religious and 
our scientific ideas, that while knowledge of the cause which 
produces effects on our consciousness is impossible, the 
existence of a cause for these effects is a datum of con- 
sciousness. We saw that the belief in a Power of which 
no limit in Time or Space can be conceived, is that funda- 
mental element in Religion which survives all its changes 
of form. We saw that all Philosophies avowedly or tacitly 
recognize this same ultimate truth: — that while the Rela- 
tivist rightly repudiates those definite assertions which the 
Absolutist makes respecting existence transcending per- 
ception, he is yet at last compelled to unite with him in 
predicating existence transcending perception. And this 
inexpugnable consciousness in which Religion and Philoso- 
phy are at one with Common Sense, proved to be like- 
wise that on which all exact Science is based. We found 
that subjective Science can give no account of those con- 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 565 

ditioned modes of being which constitute consciousness, 
without postulating unconditioned being. And we found 
that objective Science can give no account of the world 
which we know as external, without regarding its changes 
of form as manifestations of something that continues con- 
stant under all forms. This is also the implication to which 
we are now led back by our completed synthesis. The 
recognition of a persistent Force, ever changing its mani- 
festations but unchanged in quantity throughout all past 
time and all future time, is that which we find alone makes 
possible each concrete interpretation, and at last unifies all 
concrete interpretations. ISTot, indeed, that this coincidence 
adds to the strength of the argument as a logical structure. 
Our synthesis has proceeded by taking for granted at every 
step this ultimate truth; and the ultimate truth cannot, 
therefore, be regarded as in any sense an outcome of the 
synthesis. Nevertheless, the coincidence yields a verifica- 
tion. For when treating of the data of Philosophy, it was 
pointed out that we cannot take even a first step without 
making assumptions ; and that the only course is to proceed 
with them as provisional, until they are proved true by the 
congruity of all the results reached. This congruity we 
here see to be perfect and all-embracing — holding through- 
out that entire structure of definite consciousness of rela- 
tions which we call Knowledge, and harmonizing with it 
that indefinite consciousness of existence transcending re- 
lations which forms the essence of Religion. 

§ 192. Towards some result of this order, inquiry, scien- 
tific, metaphysical, and theological, has been, and still is, 
manifestly advancing. The coalescence of polytheistic con- 
ceptions into the monotheistic conception, and the reduc- 
tion of the monotheistic conception to a more and more 
general form in which personal superintendence becomes 
merged in universal immanence, clearly shows this advance. 
It is equally shown in the fading away of old theories about 



566 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

" essences," " potentialities/' " occult virtues/' &c. ; in the 
abandonment of such doctrines as those of " Platonic 
Ideas/' " Pre-established Harmonies/' and the like; and in 
the tendency towards the identification of Being as present 
to us in consciousness, with Being as otherwise conditioned 
beyond consciousness. Still more conspicuous is it in the 
progress of Science; which, from the beginning has been 
grouping isolated facts under laws, uniting special laws 
under more general laws, and so reaching on to laws of 
higher and higher generality ; until the conception of univer- 
sal laws has become familiar to it. 

Unification being thus the characteristic of developing 
thought of all kinds, and eventual arrival at unity being 
fairly inferable, there arises yet a further support to our 
conclusion. Since, unless there is some other and higher 
unity, the unity we have reached must be that towards which 
developing thought tends; and that there is any other and 
higher unity is scarcely supposable. Having grouped the 
changes which all orders of existences display into induc- 
tions; having merged these inductions into a single induc- 
tion; having interpreted this induction deductively; having 
seen that the ultimate truth from which it is deduced is 
one transcending proof; it seems, to say the least, very im- 
probable that there can be established a fundamentally 
different way of unifying that entire process of things 
which Philosophy has to interpret. That the foregoing 
accumulated verifications are all illusive, or that an opposing 
doctrine can show a greater accumulation of verifications, is 
not easy to conceive. 

Let no one suppose that any such implied degree of 
trustworthiness is alleged of the various minor propositions 
brought in illustration of the general argument. Such an 
assumption would be so manifestly absurd, that it seems 
scarcely needful to disclaim it. But the truth of the doctrine 
as a whole, is unaffected by errors in the details of its pre- 
sentation. If it can be shown that the Persistence of Force 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION". 567 

is not a datum of consciousness; or if it can be shown 
that the several laws of force above specified are not corol- 
laries from, it; or if it can be shown that, given these laws, 
the re-distribution of Matter and Motion does not neces- 
sarily proceed as described; then, indeed, it will be shown 
that the theory of Evolution has not the high warrant here 
claimed for it. But nothing short of this can shake the 
general conclusions arrived at. 

§ 193. If these conclusions be accepted — if it be agreed 
that the phenomena going on everywhere are parts of the 
general process of Evolution, save where they are parts of 
the reverse process of Dissolution; then we may infer that 
all phenomena receive their complete interpretation, only 
when recognized as parts of these processes. Whence it 
follows that the limit towards which Knowledge is advanc- 
ing, must be reached when the formulae of these processes 
are so applied as to yield a total and specific interpretation 
of each phenomenon in its entirety, as well as of phenomena 
in general. 

The partially-unified knowledge distinguished as Sci- 
ence, does not yet include such total interpretations. Either, 
as in the more complex sciences, the progress is almost ex- 
clusively inductive; or, as in the simpler sciences, the de- 
ductions are concerned with the component phenomena; 
and at present there is scarcely a consciousness that the 
ultimate task is the deductive interpretation of phenomena 
in their state of composition. The Abstract Sciences, deal- 
it li the forms under which phenomena are presented, 
and the Abstracts loncrete Sciences, dealing with the factors 
by which phenomena are produced, are, philosophically con- 
sidered, the handmaids of the Concrete Science-, which 
deal with the produced phenomena as existing in all their 
natural complexity. The laws of the forms and the laws of 
the factors having been ascertained, there then comes the 
business of ascertaining the laws of the products, as deter- 



568 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

mined by the inter-action of the co-operative factors. Given 
the Persistence of Force, and given the various derivative 
laws of Force, and there has to be shown not only how 
the actual existences of the inorganic world necessarily 
exhibit the traits they do, but how there necessarily result 
the more numerous and involved traits exhibited by organic 
and super-organic existences — how an organism is evolved? 
what is the genesis of human intelligence? whence social 
progress arises? 

It is evident that this development of Knowledge into 
an organized aggregate of direct and indirect deductions 
from the Persistence of Force, can be achieved only in the 
remote future; and, indeed, cannot be completely achieved 
even then. Scientific progress is progress in that equilibra- 
tion of thought and things which we saw is going on, and 
must continue to go on; but which cannot arrive at per- 
fection in any finite period. Still, though Science can never 
be entirely reduced to this form; and though only at a far 
distant time can it be brought nearly to this form; much 
may even now be done in the way of approximation. 

Of course, what may now be done, can be done but very 
imperfectly by any single individual. ~No one can possess 
that encyclopedic information required for rightly organiz- 
ing even the truths already established. Nevertheless as pro- 
gress is effected by increments — as all organization, begin- 
ning in faint and blurred outlines, is completed by successive 
modifications and additions; advantage may accrue from an 
attempt, however rude, to reduce the facts now accumulated 
— or rather certain classes of them — to something like co- 
ordination. Such must be the plea for the several volumes 
which are to succeed this ; dealing with the respective divis- 
ions of what we distinguished at the outset as Special Phi- 
losophy. 

§ 104. A few closing words must be said, concerning 
the general bearings of the doctrines that are now to be fur- 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 569 

tlier developed. Before proceeding to interpret the detailed 
phenomena of Life, and Mind, and Society, in terms of 
Matter, Motion, and Force, the reader must be reminded in 
what sense the interpretations are to be accepted. 

It is true that their purely relative character has been re- 
peatedly insisted upon ; but the liability to misinterpretation 
is so great, that notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary, 
there will probably have arisen in not a few minds, the con- 
viction that the solutions which have been given, along with 
those to be derived from them, are essentially materialistic. 
Having, throughout life, constantly heard the charge of 
materialism made against those who ascribed the more in- 
volved phenomena to agencies like those which produce the 
simplest phenomena, most persons have acquired repug- 
nance to such modes of interpretation; and the universal ap- 
plication of them, even though it is premised that the solu- 
tions they give can be but relative, will probably rouse more 
or less of the habitual feeling. Such an attitude of mind, 
however, is significant, not so much of a reverence for the 
Unknown Cause, as of an irreverence for those familiar 
forms in which the Unknown Cause is manifested to us. 
Men who have not risen above that vulgar conception which 
unites with Matter the contemptuous epithets " gross " 
and " brute," may naturally feel dismay at the proposal to 
reduce the phenomena of Life, of Mind, and of Society, to a 
level with those which they think so degraded. But who- 
ever remembers that the forms of existence which the un- 
cultivated speak of with so much scorn, are shown by the 
man of science to be the more marvellous in their attributes 
the more they are investigated, and are also proved to be 
in their ultimate natures absolutely incomprehensible — 
as absolutely incomprehensible as sensation, or the conscious 
something which perceives it — whoever clearly recog- 
nizes this truth, will see that the course proposed does not 
imply a degradation of the so-called higher, bur an eleva- 
tion of the so-called lower. Perceiving as he will, that 
38 



570 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

the Materialist and Spiritualist controversy is a mere war of 
words, in which the disputants are equally absurd — each 
thinking he understands that which it is impossible for any 
man to understand — he will perceive how utterly groundless 
is the fear referred to. Being fully convinced that whatever 
nomenclature is used, the ultimate mystery must remain the 
same, he will be as ready to formulate all phenomena in 
terms of Matter, Motion, and Force, as in any other terms ; 
and will rather indeed anticipate, that only in a doctrine 
which recognizes the Unknown Cause as co-extensive with 
all orders of phenomena, can there be a consistent Religion, 
or a consistent Philosophy. 

Though it is impossible to prevent misrepresentations, 
especially when the questions involved are of a kind that ex- 
cite so much animus, yet to guard against them as far as may 
be, it will be well to make a succinct and emphatic re-state- 
ment of the Philosophico-Religious doctrine which per- 
vades the foregoing pages. Over and over again it has 
been shown in various ways, that the deepest truths we can 
reach, are simply statements of the widest uniformities in 
our experience of the relations of Matter, Motion, and 
Force; and that Matter, Motion, and Force are but symbols 
of the Unknown Reality. A Power of which the nature re- 
mains for ever inconceivable, and to which no limits in Time 
or Space can be imagined, works in us certain effects. 
These effects have certain likenesses of kind, the most 
general of which we class together under the names of 
Matter, Motion, and Force; and between these effects there 
are likenesses of connection, the most constant of which we 
class as laws of the highest certainty. Analysis reduces 
these several kinds of effect to one kind of effect; and these 
several kinds of uniformity to one kind of uniformity. And 
the highest achievement of Science is the interpretation of 
all orders of phenomena, as differently-conditioned manifes- 
tations of this one kind of effect, under differently-condi- 
tioned modes of this one kind of uniformity. But when 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 571 

Science has done this, it has done nothing more than sys- 
tematize our experience; and has in no degree extended 
the limits of our experience. We can say no more than be- 
fore, whether the uniformities are as absolutely necessary, 
as they have become to our thought relatively necessary. 
The utmost possibility for us, is an interpetation of the 
process of things as it presents itself to our limited 
consciousness; but how this process is related to the 
actual process we are unable to conceive, much less to 
know. Similarly, it must be remembered that 

while the connection between the phenomenal order and 
the ontological order is for ever inscrutable; so is the con- 
nection between the conditioned forms of being and the 
unconditioned form of being for ever inscrutable. The 
interpretation of all phenomena in terms of Matter, Motion, 
and Force, is nothing more than the reduction of our com- 
plex symbols of thought, to the simplest symbols; and 
when the equation has been brought to its lowest terms the 
symbols remain symbols still. Hence the reasonings con- 
tained in the foregoing pages, afford no support to either of 
the antagonist hypotheses respecting the ultimate nature of 
things. Their implications are no more materialistic than 
they are spiritualistic; and no more spiritualistic than they 
are materialistic. Any argument which is apparently fur- 
nished to either hypothesis, is neutralized by as good an 
argument furnished to the other. The Materialist, seeing 
it to be a necessary deduction from the law of correlation, 
that what exists in consciousness under the form of feeling, 
is transformable into an equivalent of mechanical motion, 
and by consequence into equivalents of all the other forces 
which matter exhibits; may consider it therefore demon- 
strated that the phenomena of consciousness are material 
phenomena. But the Spiritualist, setting out with the same 
data, may argue with equal cogency, that if the forces 
displayed by matter are cognizable only under the shape of 
those equivalent amounts of consciousness which they pro- 



572 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

duce, it is to be inferred that these forces, when existing 
out of consciousness, are of the same intrinsic nature as 
when existing in consciousness; and that so is justified the 
spiritualistic conception of the external world, as consisting 
of something essentially identical with what we call mind. 
Manifestly, the establishment of correlation and equivalence 
between the forces of the outer and the inner worlds, may 
be used to assimilate either to the other; according as we 
set out with one or other term. But he who rightly inter- 
prets the doctrine contained in this work, will see that 
neither of these terms can be taken as ultimate. He will 
see that though the relation of subject and object renders 
necessary to us these antithetical conceptions of Spirit and 
Matter; the one is no less than the other to be regarded as 
but a sign of the Unknown Keality which underlies both. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX, 

DEALING WITH CERTAIN CRITICISMS. 

Oxe way of estimating the validity of a critic's judgments, is 
that of studying his mental peculiarities as generally displayed. 
If he betrays idiosyncrasies of thought in his writings at large, 
it may be inferred that these idiosyncrasies possibly, if not 
probably, give a character to the verdicts he passes upon the 
productions of others. I am led to make this remark by con- 
sidering the probable connexion between Professor Tait's 
habit of mind as otherwise shown, and as shown in the opinion 
he has tacitly expressed respecting the formula of Evolution. 

Daily carrying on experimental researches, Professor Tait 
is profoundly impressed with the supreme value of the experi- 
mental method; and has reached the conviction that by it 
alone can any physical knowledge be gained. Though he calls 
the ultimate truths of physics " axioms," yet, not very con- 
sistently, he alleges that only by observation and experiment 
can these " axioms " be known as such. Passing over this in- 
consistency, however, we have here to note the implied propo- 
sition that where no observation or experiment is possible, no 
physical truth can be established; and, indeed, that in the 
absence of any possibility of experiment or observation there 
is no l)asis for any physical belief ai all. Now The Unseen 
Universe, a work written by him in conjunction with Professor 
Balfour-Stewart, contains an elaborate argument concerning 
the relations between the Universe which is visible to us and 
an invisible Universe. This argument, carried on in pursu- 
ance of physical laws established by converse with the Uni- 
verse we know, extends I hem to the Universe we do not know: 
the law of the Conservation of Energy, for example, being 
regarded as common to the two, and the principle of Con- 
tinuity, wliieh is traced anions perceptible phenomena, being 
assumed to hold likewise of the imperceptible. On the strength 
of these reasonings, conclusions are drawn which are consid- 

575 



576 APPENDIX. 

ered as at least probable: support is found for certain theo- 
logical beliefs. Now, clearly, the relation between the seen 
and the unseen Universes cannot be the subject of any observa- 
tion or experiment; since, by the definition of it, one term 
of the relation is absent. If we have, then, no warrant for 
asserting a physical axiom save as a generalization of results 
of experiments — if, consequently, where no observation or 
experiment is possible, reasoning after physical methods can 
have no place; then there can be no basis for any conclusion 
respecting the physical relations of the seen and the unseen 
Universes. Not so, however, concludes Professor Tait, He 
thinks that while no validity can be claimed for our judg- 
ments respecting perceived forces, save as experimentally justi- 
fied, some validity can be claimed for our judgments respect- 
ing unperceived forces, where no experimental justification 
is possible. 

The peculiarity thus exhibited in Professor Tait's general 
thinking, is exhibited also in some of his thinking on those 
special topics with which he is directly concerned as a Pro- 
fessor of Physics. An instance was given by Professor Clerk- 
Maxwell when reviewing, in Nature for July 3, 1879, the new 
edition (1879) of Thomson and Tait's Treatise on Natural 
Philosophy. Professor Clerk-Maxwell writes: — 

" Again at p. 222, the capacity of the student is called upon to accept 
the following statement : — 

' Matter has an innate power of resisting external influences, so that 
every body, as far as it can, remains at rest or moves uniformly in a 
straight line.' 

Is it a fact that ' matter ' has any power, either innate or acquired, of 
resisting external influences % " 

And to Professor Clerk-Maxwell's question thus put, the an- 
swer of one not having a like mental peculiarity with Professor 
Tait, must surely be — No. 

But the most remarkable example of Professor Tait's mode 
of thought, as exhibited in his own department, is contained 
in a lecture which he gave at Glasgow when the British Asso- 
ciation last met there (see Nature September 21, 1876) — a 
lecture given for the purpose of dispelling certain erroneous 
conceptions of force commonly entertained. Asking how the 
word force " is to be correctly used " he says : — 

" Here we cannot but consult Newton. The sense in which he uses 
the word 'force,' and therefore the sense in which we must continue to 
use it if we desire to avoid intellectual confusion, will appear clearly 
from a brief consideration of his simple statement of the laws of motion. 



APPENDIX. 577 

The first of these laws is : Every body continues in its state of rest or of 
uniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it is compelled by 
impressed forces to change that state." 

Thus Professor Tait quotes, and fully approves, that concep- 
tion of force which regards it as something which changes 
the state of a body. Later on in the course of his lecture, after 
variously setting forth his views of how force is rightly to be 
conceived, he says " force is the rate at which an agent does 
work per unit of length." Xow let us compare these two 
definitions of force. It is first, on the authority of Newton 
emphatically endorsed, said to be that which changes the state 
of a body. Then it is said to be the rate at which an agent 
does work (doing work being equivalent to changing a body's 
state). In the one case, therefore, force itself is the agent 
which does the work or changes the state; in the other case, 
force is the rate at which some other agent does the work or 
changes the state. How are these statements to be reconciled? 
Otherwise put the difficulty stands thus: — force is that which 
changes the state of a body; force is a rate, and a rate is a re- 
lation (as between time and distance, interest and capital); 
therefore a relation changes the state of a body. A relation 
is no longer a nexus among phenomena, but becomes a pro- 
ducer of phenomena. Whether Professor Tait succeeded in 
dispelling " the wide-spread ignorance as to some of the most 
important elementary principles of physics " — whether his 
audience went away with clear ideas of the " much abused 
and misunderstood term " force, the report does not tell us. 

Let us pass now from these illustrations of Professor Tait's 
judgment as exhibited in his special department, to the con- 
sideration of his judgment on a wider question here before 
us — the formula of Evolution. In Nature for July 17, 1879, 
while reviewing Sir Edmund Beckett's Origin of the Laws of 
Nature and praising it, he says of the author: — 

"lie follows in fact, in his own way. the hint given by a great mathe- 
matician (Kirkman) who made the following exquisite translation of a 
well-known definition : — Evolution is a change from an indefinite, inco- 
herent, homogeneity to a definite, coherent, heterogeneity, through con- 
tinuous differentiations and integrations.* 

[Translation into i>l<tin English.'] Evolution is a change from a no- 
howish, untalkaboutaole, all-alikeness, to a somehowish and in-general- 
talkabontable not-all-alikeness, by continuous somethingelseiflcations, 
and stioktogetherat ions." 

* A conscientious Clitic usually consults the latest edition of the work 

he criticizes, so that the author may have the benefit of any corrections 

or alterations ho has made. Apparently Mr. Kirkman does not think 



578 APPENDIX. 

Professor Tait, proceeding then to quote from Sir Edmund 
Beckett's book passages in which, as he thinks, there is a kin- 
dred tearing off of disguises from the expressions used by other 
authors, winds up by saying — " When the purposely vague 
statements of the materialists and agnostics are thus stripped 
of the tinsel of high-flown and unintelligible language, the 
eyes of the thoughtless who have accepted them on author- 
ity (!) are at last opened, and they are ready to exclaim with 
Titania, methinks ' I was enamoured of an ass/ " And that 
Mr. Kirkman similarly believes that his travesty proves the 
formula of Evolution to be meaningless, is shown by the sen- 
tence which follows it — " Can any man show that my trans- 
lation is unfair? " 

One would have thought that Mr. Kirkman and Professor 
Tait, however narrowly they limited themselves to their special 
lines of inquiry, could hardly have avoided observing that in 
proportion as scientific terms express wider generalities, they 
necessarily lose that vividness of suggestion which words of 
concrete meanings have; and therefore to the unitiated seem 
vague, or even empty. If Professor Tait enunciated to a 
rustic the physical axiom, " action and reaction are equal and 
opposite," the rustic might not improbably fail to form any 
corresponding idea. And he might, if his self-confidence were 
akin to that of Mr. Kirkman, conclude that where he saw no 
meaning there could be no meaning. Further, if, after the 
axiom had been brought partially within his comprehension 
by an example, he were to laugh at the learned words used 
and propose to say instead — " shoving and back-shoving are 
one as strong as the other; " it would possibly be held by Pro- 
fessor Tait that this way of putting it is hardly satisfactory. 
If he thought it worth while to enlighten the rustic, he might 
perhaps point out to him that his statement did not include 
all the facts — that not only shoving and back-shoving, but 
also pulling and back-pulling, are one as strong as the other. 
Supposing the rustic were not too conceited, he might event- 
ually be taught that the abstract, and to him seemingly vague, 
formula " action and reaction are equal and opposite," was 
chosen because by no words of a more specific kind could be 

such a precaution needful. Publishing in 1876 his Philosophy without 
Assumptions, from which the above passage is taken, he quotes from tho 
first edition of First Principles published in 1802: though in the edition 
<>f 1H07, and all subsequent ones, the definition is, in expression, consider- 
ably modified — two of the leading words being no longer used. 



APPENDIX. 579 

expressed the truth in its entirety. Professor Tait however, 
and Mr. Kirkman, though the physical and mathematical 
terms they daily employ are so highly abstract as to prove 
meaningless to those who are unfamiliar with the concrete 
facts covered by them, seem not to have drawn any general 
inference from this habitual experience. For had they done 
so, they must have been aware that a formula expressing all 
orders of changes in their general course — astronomic, geo- 
logic, biologic, psychologic, sociologic — could not possibly be 
framed in any other than words of the highest abstractness. 
Perhaps there may come the rejoinder that they do not believe 
any such universal formula is possible. Perhaps they will 
say that the on-going of things as shown in our planetary sys- 
tem, has nothing in common with the on-going of things 
which has brought the Earth's crust to its present state, and 
that this has nothing in common with the on-going of things 
which the growths and actions of living bodies show us; al- 
though, considering that the laws of molar motion and the 
laws of molecular action are proved to hold true of them all, 
it requires considerable courage to assert that the modes of 
co-operation of the physical forces in these several regions of 
phenomena, present no traits in common. But unless they 
allege that there is one law for the redistribution of matter and 
motion in the heavens, and another law for the redistribution 
of matter and motion in the Earth's inorganic masses, and 
another law for its organic masses — unless they assert that the 
transformation everywhere in progress follows here one meth- 
od and there another; they must admit that the proposition 
which expresses the general course of the transformation can 
do it only in terms remote in the extremest degree from words 
suggesting definite objects and actions. 

After Doting the unconsciousness thus betrayed by Mr. 
Kirkman and Professor Tait, that the expression of highly 
abstract truths necessitates highly abstract words, we may go 
on to note a scarcely less remarkable anomaly of thought 
shown by them. BIr. Kirk-man appears to think, and Professor 
Tait apparently agrees with him in thinking, that when one 
of these abstract words coined from Greek or Latin roots, is 
transformed into an uncouth-looking combination of equiva- 
lents of Saxon, or rat her old English, origin, what they regard 
as its misleading glamour is thereby dissipated and its mean- 
inglessnesfl made manifest. We may conveniently observe the 
nature of Mr. kirkmaifs belief, by listening to an imaginary 



580 APPENDIX. 

addition to that address before the Literary and Philosophical 
Society of Liverpool, in which he first set forth the leading 
ideas of his volume; and we may fitly, in this imaginary addi- 
tion, adopt the manner in which he delights. 

" Observe, gentlemen," we may suppose him saying, " I 
have here the yolk of an egg. The evolutionists, using their 
jargon, say that one of its characters is ' homogeneity; ' and 
if you do not examine your thoughts, perhaps you may think 
that the word conveys some idea. But now if I translate it 
into plain English and say that one of the characters of this 
yolk is ' all-afikeness/ you at once perceive how nonsensical 
is their statement. You see that the substance of the yolk is 
not all-alike, and that therefore all-alikeness cannot be one of 
its attributes. Similarly with the other pretentious term 
i heterogeneity/ which, according to them, describes the state 
things are brought to by what they call evolution. It is mere 
empty sound, as is manifest if I do but transform it, as I did 
the other, and say instead ' not-all-alikeness/ For on show- 
ing you this chick into which the yolk of the egg turns, you 
will see that ' not-all-alikeness ' is a character which cannot 
be claimed for it. How can any one say that the parts of the 
chick are not-all-alike? Again, in their blatant language 
we are told that evolution is carried on by continuous ' dif- 
ferentiations; ' and they would have us believe that this word' 
expresses some fact. But if we put instead of it ' something- 
elseifications ' the delusion they try to practise on us becomes 
clear. How can they say that Avhile the parts have been form- 
ing themselves, the heart has been becoming something else 
than the stomach, and the leg something else than the 
wing, and the head something else than the tail? The 
like manifestly happens when for i integrations ' we read 
' sticktogetherations : ' what sense the term might seem to 
have, becomes obvious nonsense when the substituted word 
is used. For nobody dares assert that the parts of the chick 
stick together any more than do the parts of the yolk. I need 
hardly show you that now when I take a portion of the yolk 
between my fingers and pull, and now when I take any part 
of the chick, as the leg, and pull, the first resists just as much 
as the last — the last does not stick together any more than the 
first; so that there has been no progress in ' sticktogethera- 
tions/ And thus, gentlemen, you perceive that these big 
words which, to the disgrace of the Royal Society, appear oven 
in papers published by it, are mere empty bladders which these 



APPENDIX. 581 

would-be philosophers use to buoy up their ridiculous doc- 
trines." 

There is a further curious mental trait exhibited by Mr. 
Kirkman and which Professor Tait appears to have in com- 
mon with him. Very truly it has been remarked that there is a 
great difference between disclosing the absurdities contained 
in a thing and piling absurdities upon it; and a remark to be 
added is that some minds appear incapable of distinguishing 
between intrinsic absurdity and extrinsic absurdity. The case 
before us illustrates this remark; and at the same time shows 
us how analytical faculties of one kind may be constantly 
exercised without strengthening analytical faculties of another 
kind — how mathematical analysis may be daily practised with- 
out any skill in psychological analysis being acquired. For 
if these gentlemen had analyzed their own thoughts to any 
purpose, they would have known that incongruous juxtaposi- 
tions may, by association of ideas, suggest characters that do 
not at all belong to the things juxtaposed. Did Mr. Kirkman 
ever observe the result of putting a bonnet on a nude statue? 
If he ever did, and if he then reasoned after the manner ex- 
emplified above, he doubtless concluded that the obscene effect 
belonged intrinsically to the statue, and only required the 
addition of the bonnet to make it conspicuous. The alterna- 
tive conclusion, however, which perhaps most will draw, is 
that not in the statue itself was there anything of an obscene 
suggestion, but that this effect was purely adventitious: the 
bonnet, connected in daily experience with living women, 
calling up the thought of a living woman with the head dressed 
but otherwise naked. Similarly though, by clothing an idea 
in words which excite a feeling of the ludicrous by their odd- 
ity, any one may associate this feeling of the ludicrous with 
the idea itself, yet he does not thereby make the idea ludi- 
crous: and if he thinks he does, he shows that he has not prac- 
tised introspection to much purpose. 

By way of a lesson in mental discipline, it may be not un- 
instructive here to note a curious kinship of opinion between 
these two mathematicians and two litterateurs. At first sight 

it appears strange that men whose live- are passed in -Indies 

.-<> absolutely scientific as those which Professor Tail and Mi-. 
Kirkman pursue, should, in their judgments <>n the formula 

of Evolution, he at one with two men of exclusively literary 
culture — a North American Reviewer and Mr. Matthew Ar- 
nold. In the North American Review, vol. 120, page 202, a 



582 APPENDIX. 

critic, after quoting the formula of Evolution, says: — * This 
may be all true, but it seems at best rather the blank form for 
a universe than anything corresponding to the actual world 
about us." On which the comment may be that one who had 
studied celestial mechanics as much as the reviewer has studied 
the general course of transformations, might similarly have 
remarked that the formula — " bodies attract one another di- 
rectly as their masses and inversely as the squares of their 
distances," was at best but a blank form for solar systems and 
sidereal clusters. With this parenthetical comment I pass 
to the fact above hinted, that Mr. Matthew i^rnold obviously 
coincides with the reviewer's estimate of the formula. In 
Chapter V. of his work God and the Bible, when preparing 
the way for a criticism on German theologians as losing them- 
selves in words, he quotes a saying from Homer. This he in- 
troduces by remarking that it " is not at all a grand one. We 
are almost ashamed to quote it to readers who may have come 
fresh from the last number of the North American Review, 
and from the great sentence there quoted as summing up Mr. 
Herbert Spencer's theory of evolution: — i Evolution is &c.' 
Homer's poor little saying comes not in such formidable shape. 
It is only this: — Wide is the range of tuords! words may make 
this way or that way" And then he proceeds with his re- 
flections upon German logomachies. All of which makes it 
manifest that, going out of his way, as he does, to quote this 
formula from the North American Review, he intends tacitly 
to indicate his agreement in the reviewer's estimate of it. 

That these two men of letters, like the two mathematicians, 
are unable to frame ideas answering to the words in which 
evolution at large is expressed, seems manifest. In all four 
the verbal symbols used call up either no images, or images 
of the vaguest kinds, which, grouped together, form but the 
most shadowy thoughts. If, now, we ask what is the common 
trait in the education and pursuits of all four, we see it to be 
lack of familiarity with those complex processes of change 
which the concrete sciences bring before us. The men of 
letters, in their early days dieted on grammars and lexicons, 
and in their later days occupied with belles lettres, Biography, 
and a History made up mainly of personalities, are by their 
education and course of life left almost without scientific ideas 
of a definite kind. The universality of physical causation — 
the interpretation of all things in terms of a never-ceasing 
redistribution of matter and motion, is naturally to them an 



APPENDIX. 5S3 

idea utterly alien. The mathematician, too, and the mathe- 
matical physicist, occupied exclusively with the phenomena 
of number, space, and time, or, in dealing with forces, deal- 
ing with them in the abstract, carry on their researches in 
such ways as may, and often do, leave them quite unconscious 
of the traits exhibited by the general transformations which 
things, individually and in their totality, undergo. In a chap- 
ter on " Discipline " in the Study of Sociology, I have com- 
mented upon the uses of the several groups of Sciences — 
Abstract, Abstract-Concrete, and Concrete — in cultivating 
different powers of mind; and have argued that while for 
complete preparation, the discipline of each group of sciences 
is indispensable, the discipline of any one group alone, or 
any two groups, leave certain defects of judgment. Especially 
have I contrasted the analytical habit of thought which study 
of the Abstract and Abstract-Concrete Sciences produces, with 
the synthetical habit of thought, produced by study of the 
Concrete Sciences. And I have exemplified the defects of 
judgment to which the analytical habit unqualified by the 
synthetical habit, leads. Here we meet with a striking illus- 
tration. Scientific culture of the analytical kind, almost as 
much as absence of scientific culture, leaves the mind bare 
of those ideas with which the Concrete Sciences deal. Exclu- 
sive familiarity with the forms and factors of phenomena, no 
more fits men for dealing with the products in their totalities, 
than does mere literary study. 

An objection made to the formula of evolution by a sympa- 
thetic critic, Mr. T. E. Cliffe Leslie, calls for notice. It is 
urged in a spirit widely different from that displayed by Mr. 
Kirkman and his applauder Professor Tait; and" it has an 
apparent justification. Indeed many readers who before ac- 
cepted the formula of Evolution in full, will, after reading 
Mr. Cliffe Leslie's comments, agree with him in thinking that 
ii is to I)'- taken with the qualifications he points out. We 
shall find, however, that a clearer apprehension of the mean- 
ings of the words \\>c(\, and a clearer apprehension of the 
formula in its totality, excludes the criticisms Mr. Leslie 
make-;. 

In the first place he dissociates from one another those 
traits of Evolution which I have associated, and which I have 

alleged to he true only when associated. He quotes me as 

saving that a change from the homogeneous to the hctero- 



584 APPENDIX. 

geneous characterizes all evolution; and he puts this at the 
outset of his criticism as though I made this change the pri- 
mary characteristic. But if he will refer to First Principles^ 
Part II. chap. 14 (in the second and subsequent editions) he 
will find it shown that under its primary aspect, Evolution 
" is a change from a less coherent form to a more coherent 
form, consequent on the dissipation of motion and integra- 
tion of matter." The next chapter contains proofs that the 
change from homogeneity to heterogeneity is a secondary 
change, which, when conditions allow, accompanies the 
change from the incoherent to the coherent. At the begin- 
ning of the chapter after -that, come the sentences — " But 
now, does this generalization express the whole truth? Does 
it include everything essentially characterizing Evolution and 
exclude everything else? ... A critical examination of the 
facts will show that it does neither." And the chapter then 
goes on to show that the change is from an indefinite inco- 
herent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity. 
Further qualifications contained in a succeeding chapter, bring 
the formula to this final form — " Evolution is an integration 
of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during 
which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homo- 
geneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during 
which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transforma- 
tion." 

Now if these various traits of the process of Evolution are 
kept simultaneously in view, it will be seen that most of Mr. 
Cliffe Leslie's objections fail to apply. He says: — 

" The movement of language, law, and political and civil union, is for 
the most part in an opposite direction. In a savage country like Africa, 
speech is in a perpetual flux, and new dialects spring up with every 
swarm from the parent hive. In the civilized world the unification of 
language is rapidly proceeding." 

Here two different ideas are involved — the evolution of a lan- 
guage considered singly, and the evolution of languages con- 
sidered as an aggregate. Nothing which he says implies that 
any one language becomes, during its evolution, less hetero- 
geneous. The disappearance of dialects is not a progress to- 
wards the homogeneity of a language, but is the final triumph 
of one variety of a language over the other varieties, and the 
extinction of them: the conquering variety meanwhile be- 
coming within itself more heterogeneous. This, too, is the 
process which Mr. Leslie refers to as likely to end in an ex- 



APPENDIX. 5S5 

tinction of the Celtic languages. x4dvance towards homo- 
geneity would be shown if the various languages in Europe, 
having been previously unlike, were, while still existing, to 
become gradually more like. But the supplanting of one by 
another, or of some by others, no more implies any tendency 
of languages to become alike, than does the supplanting of 
species, genera, orders, and classes of animals, one by another, 
during the evolution of life, imply the tendency of organisms 
to assimilate in their natures. Even if the most heterogene- 
ous creature, Man, should overrun the Earth and extirpate 
the greater part of its other inhabitants, it would not imply 
any tendency towards homogeneity in the proper sense. It 
would remain true that organisms tend perpetually towards 
heterogeneity, individually and as an assemblage. Of course 
if all kinds but one were destroyed, they could no longer dis- 
play this tendency. Display of it would be limited to. the 
remaining kind, which would continue, as now, to show it 
in the formation of local varieties, becoming gradually more 
divergent; and the like is true of languages. 

In the next case Mr. Leslie identifies progressing unifica- 
tion with advance towards homogeneity. His words are: — 

" Already Europe has nearly consolidated itself into a Heptarchy, the 
number of states into which England itself was once divided ; and the 
result of the American War exemplifies the prevalence of the forces tend- 
ing to homogeneity over those tending to heterogeneity." 

To this the reply is that these cases exemplify, rather, the 
prevalence of the forces which change the incoherent into the 
coherent — which effect integration. That is, they exemplify 
Evolution under its primary aspect. In the Principles of Soci- 
ology, Part II. chap 3, Mr. Leslie will find numerous kindred 
cases brought in illustration of this law of Evolution. To 
which add that such integrations bring after them greater 
heterogeneity, not greater homogeneity. The divisions of the 
Heptarchy were societies substantially like one another in 
their structures and activities; but the parts of the nation 
which correspond to them, have been differentiated into parts 
carrying on varieties of occupations with entailed unlikenesses 
of structures — here purely agricultural, there manufacturing; 
here predominantly given to coal mining and iron smelting, 
there to weaving; here distinguished by scattered villages, 
there by clusters of large towns. 

Again, it is alleged that an increasing homogeneity is 
shown in fashion. "Once every rank, profession, and district 
80 



5S6 APPENDIX. 

had a distinctive garb; now all such distinctions, save with 
the priest and the soldier, have almost disappeared among 
men." But while for a reason to be presently pointed out, there 
has occurred a change which has abolished one order of dif- 
ferences, differences of another order, far more multitudinous, 
have arisen. Nothing is more striking than the extreme 
heterogeneity of dress at the present day. As Mr. Leslie 
alleges, the dresses of those forming each class were once 
all alike; now no two dresses are alike. Within the vague 
limits of the current fashion, the degree of variety in wom- 
en's costumes is infinite; and even men's costumes, though 
having average resemblances, diverge from one another 
in colours, materials, and detailed forms in innumerable 
ways. 

Other instances given by Mr. Leslie concern the organiza- 
tions for carrying on production and distribution. He argues 
that— 

" In the industrial world a generation ago a constant movement to- 
wards a differentiation of employments and functions appeared ; now 
some marked tendencies to their amalgamation have begun to disclose 
themselves. Joint Stock Companies have almost effaced all real division 
of labour in the wide region of trade within their operation." 

Here, as before, Mr. Leslie represents amalgamation as equiva- 
lent to increase of homogeneity; whereas amalgamation is but 
another name for integration, which is the primary process of 
Evolution, and which may, and does, go along with increas- 
ing heterogeneity in the amalgamated things. It cannot be 
said that a Joint Stock Banking Company, with its proprie- 
tory and directors in addition to its officers, contains fewer 
unlike parts than does a private Banking establishment: the 
contrary must be said. A Eailway Company has far more 
numerous functionaries with different duties, than had the 
one, or the many, coaching establishments it replaced. And 
then, apart from the fact that the larger aggregate of co-opera- 
tors who, as a Company, carry on, say a process of manufacture, 
is more complex as well as more extensive; there is the fact, 
here chiefly to be noted, that the entire assemblage of indus- 
trial structures is, by the addition of these new structures, 
made more heterogeneous than before. Had all the smaller 
manufacturing establishments, carried on by individuals or 
firms, been destroyed, the contrary might have been alleged; 
but as it is, we see that in addition to all the old forms there 
have come these new forms, making the totality of them more 



APPENDIX. 587 

multiform than before. Mr. Leslie further illustrates his 
interpretation by saying: — 

" Many of the things for sale in a village huckster's shop were formerly 
the subjects of distinct branches of business in a large town : now the 
wares in which scores of different retailers dealt, are all to be had in great 
establishments in New York, Paris, and London, which sometimes buy 
direct from the producers, thus also eliminating the wholesale dealer." 

Replies akin to the preceding ones are readily made. The first 
is that wholesale dealers have not been at present eliminated; 
and cannot be so long as the ordinary shopkeepers survive, 
as they will certainly do. In the smaller places, forming the 
great majority of places, these vast establishments cannot 
exist; and in them, shopkeepers carrying on business as at 
present, will continue to necessitate wholesale dealers. Even 
in large places the same thing will hold. It is only people 
of a certain class, able to pay ready money and willing to go 
great distances to purchase, who frequent these large estab- 
lishments. Those who live from hand to mouth, and those 
who prefer to buy at adjacent places, will maintain a certain 
proportion of shops, and the wholesale distributing organiza- 
tion needed for them. Again, we have to note that one of these 
great stores, such as Whiteley's or Shoolbred's, does not with- 
in itself display any advance towards homogeneity or de-spe- 
cialization; for it is made up of many separate departments, 
with their separate heads, carrying on businesses substantially 
separate — all superintended by one owner. It is nothing but 
an aggregate of shops under one roof instead of under the 
many roofs covering the side of a street; and exhibits just as 
much heterogeneity as the shops do when arranged in line 
instead of massed together. That which it really illustrates 
is a new form of integration, which is the primary evolution- 
ary process. And then, lastly, comes the fact that the dis- 
tributing organization of the country, considered ;)- a whole, 
is by ll)'' addition of these establishments made more hetero- 
geneous than before. All the old types of trading concerns 
continue to exist; and here are new types added, making the 
entire assemblage of them more varied. 

From these objections made by Mr. Leslie which T have 
endeavoured to show result from misapprehensions, 1 pass to 
two others which are to he met by taking accouni of certain 
complicating f;iets liable to he overlooked. Mr. Leslie re- 
marks that: — 

"In the early stages of social progross, again, a differentiation takes 
place, as Mr. Spencer has observed, between political and industrial Tunc- 



588 APPENDIX. 

tions, which fall to distinct classes ; now a man. is a merchant in the 
morning and a legislator at night ; in mercantile business one year, and 
the next perhaps head of the Navy, like Mr. Goschen or Mr. W. H. 
Smith." 

Nothing contained in this volume explains the seeming anom- 
aly here exemplified; but any one who turns to a chapter in 
the second part of the Principles of Sociology, entitled " So- 
cial Types and Metamorphoses/' will there find a clue to the- 
explanation of it; and will see that it is a phenomenon con- 
sequent on the progressing dissolution of one type and evo- 
lution of another. The doctrine of Evolution, currently re- 
garded as referring only to the development of species, is 
erroneously supposed to imply some intrinsic proclivity in 
every species towards a higher form; and, similarly, a majority 
of readers make the erroneous assumption that the trans- 
formation which constitutes Evolution in its wider sense, 
implies an intrinsic tendency to go through those changes 
which the formula of Evolution expresses. But all who have 
fully grasped the argument of this work, will see that the 
process of Evolution is not necessary, but depends on condi- 
tions; and that the prevalence of it in the Universe around, 
is consequent on the prevalence of these conditions: the fre- 
quent occurrence of Dissolution showing us that where the 
conditions are not maintained, the reverse process is quite as 
readily gone through. Bearing in mind this truth, we shall 
be prepared to find that the progress of a social organism 
towards more heterogeneous and more definite structures of a 
certain type, continues only as long as the actions which pro- 
duce these effects continue in play. We shall expect that if 
these actions cease, the progressing transformation will cease. 
We shall infer that the particular structures which have been 
formed by the activities carried on, will not grow more hetero- 
geneous and more definite; and that if other orders of activi- 
ties, implying other sets of forces, commence, answering 
structures of another kind will begin to make their appear- 
ance, to grow more heterogeneous and definite, and to replace 
the first. And it will be manifest that while the transition 
is going on — while the first structures are dissolving and the 
second evolving — there must be a mixture of structures caus- 
ing apparent confusion of traits. Just as during the meta- 
morphoses of an animal which, having during its earlier ex- 
istence led one kind of life, has to develop structures fitting 
it for another kind of life, there must occur a blurring of the 



APPENDIX. 589 

old organization while the new organization is becoming dis- 
tinct, leading to transitory anomalies of structure; so, during 
the metamorphoses undergone by a society in which the mili- 
tant activities and structures are dwindling while the indus- 
trial are growing, the old and new arrangements must be min- 
gled in a perplexing way. On reading the chapter in the 
Principles of Sociology which I have named, Mr. Leslie will 
see that the above facts referred to by him, are interpretable 
as consequent on the transition from that type of regulative 
organization proper to militant life, to that type of regulative 
organization proper to industrial life; and that so long as 
these two modes of life, utterly alien in their natures, have to 
be jointly carried on, there will continue this jumbling of the 
regulative systems they respectively require. 

The second of the objections above noted as needing to be 
otherwise dealt, with than by further explanation of the for- 
mula of Evolution, concerns the increase of likeness among 
developing systems of Civil Law; in proof of which increase 
of likeness Mr. Leslie quotes Sir Henry Maine to the effect 
that 'all laws, however dissimilar in their infancy, tend to 
resemble each other in their maturity: 5 the implication to 
which Mr. Leslie draws attention, being that in respect of 
their laws societies become not more heterogeneous but more 
homogeneous. Xow though in their details, systems of Law 
will, I think, be found to acquire as they evolve, an increasing 
number of differences from one another: yet in their cardinal 
trait- it is probably true that they usually approximate. How 
far thi> militates againsl the formula of Evolution, we shall 
best see by firsl considering the analogy furnished by animal 
organisms. Low down in the animal kingdom there are simple 
molluscs with but rudimentary nervous systems — a ganglion 
or two and a few fibres. Diverging from this low type we have 
tli'- greai sub-kingdom constituted by the higher Mollusca 
and the -till greater sub-kingdom constituted by the Verte- 
brata. As these two types evolve, their nervous Bystems de- 
velop; and though in th<- highesi members of the two they 
remain otherwise unlike, yet they approximate in so far that 
each acquires greal aervoua centres: the Large cephalopoda 
have clustered ganglia which simulate brains. ( lompare, again, 

the Mollusca and tin- Arlieulala in re8ped of their \a-eiilar 

systems. Fundamentally unlike as these are originally, and 
remaining unlike as they do throughout many successive 
stages of ascenl in these two sub kingdoms, they nevertheless 



590 APPENDIX. 

are made similar in the highest forms of both by each having 
a central propelling organ — a heart. Now in these and in some 
cases which the external organs furnish, such as the remark- 
able resemblance Evolution has produced between the eyes 
of the highest Mollusca and those of the Vertebrata, it may 
be said that there is implied a change towards homogeneity. 
No zoologist, however, would admit that these facts really 
conflict with the general law of Organic Evolution. As al- 
ready explained, the tendency to progress from homogeneity 
to heterogeneity is not intrinsic but extrinsic. Structures 
become unlike in consequence of unlike exposures to incident 
forces. This is so with organisms as wholes, which, as they 
multiply and spread, are ever falling into new sets of condi- 
tions; and it is so with the parts of each organism. These 
pass from primitive likeness into unlikeness, as fast as the 
mode of life places them in different relations to actions — 
primarily external and secondarily internal; and with each 
successive change in mode of life new unlikenesses are super- 
posed. One of the implications is that if in organisms other- 
wise different, there arise like sets of conditions to which cer- 
tain parts are subject, such parts will tend towards likeness; 
and this is what happens with their nervous and vascular sys- 
tems. Duly to co-ordinate the actions of all parts of an active 
organism, there requires a controlling apparatus; and the con- 
ditions to be fulfilled for perfect co-ordination, are conditions 
common to all active organisms. Hence, in proportion as ful- 
filment approaches completeness in the highest organisms, 
however otherwise unlike their types are, this apparatus ac- 
quires in all of them certain common characters — especially 
extreme centralization. Similarly with the apparatus for dis- 
tributing nutriment. The relatively high activity accom- 
panying superior organization, implies great waste; great 
waste implies active circulation of blood; active circulation 
of blood implies efficient propulsion; so that a heart becomes 
a common need for highly evolved creatures, however other- 
wise unlike their structures may be. Thus is it, too, with 
societies. As they evolve there arise certain conditions to be 
fulfilled for the maintenance of social life; and in proportion 
as the social life becomes high, these conditions need to be 
more effectually fulfilled. A legal code expresses one set of 
these conditions. It formulates certain regulative principles 
to which the conduct of citizens must conform that social 
activities may be harmoniously carried on. And these regu- 



APPENDIX. 501 

lative principles being in essentials the same everywhere, it 
results that systems of Law acquire certain general similarities 
as the most developed social life is approached. 

These special replies to Mr. Leslie's objections are, how- 
ever, but introductory to the general reply; which would be, 
I think, adequate even in their absence. Mr. Leslie's method 
is that of taking detached groups of social phenomena, as those 
of language, of fashion, of trade, and arguing (though as I 
have sought to show, not effectually) that their later trans- 
formations do not harmonize with the alleged general law of 
Evolution. But the real question is, not whether we find ad- 
vance to a more definite coherent heterogeneity in these taken 
separately, but whether we find this advance in the structures 
and actions of the entire society. Even were it true that the 
law does not hold in certain orders of social processes and pro- 
ducts, it would not follow that it does not hold of social pro- 
cesses and products in their totality. The law is a law of the 
transformation of aggregates; and must be tested by the 
entire assemblages of phenomena which the aggregate present. 
Omitting societies in states of decay and dissolution, which 
exhibit the converse change, and contemplating only socie- 
ties which are growing, Mr. Leslie will, I think, scarcely allege 
of any one of them that its structures and functions do not, 
taken altogether, exhibit increasing heterogeneity. And if, 
instead of taking each society as an aggregate, he takes the 
entire aggregate of societies which the Earth supports, from 
primitive hordes up to highly civilized nations, he will scarcely 
deny that this entire aggregate has been becoming more various 
in i ho forms of societies it includes, and is still becoming more 
various. 

Criticism would be greatly diminished in bulk if there 
were excluded from it all that part devoted to disproving 
statements which have not been made; and were this course 
pursued, the work On Mr. Spencer's Formula of Evolution^ 
by Malcolm Guthrie, would disappear bodily. It is little else 
than a mis-statemenl of certain fundamental views of mine, 
and then an elaborate refutation of the views as mis-stated. 

Let me firsl show by brief extracts from First Principles 
what these views are. In a chapter on u EJltimate Scientific 
[deas," after Bhowing how the hypothesis thai matter consists 
of solid atoms commits us to alternative impossibilities of 
thought, I have Bhown how the hypothesis of Boscovich, that 



592 APPENDIX. 

matter consists of centres of force without extension, is un- 
thinkable. In the course of the argument I have pointed out 
that though Boscovich's hypothesis cannot be realized in 
thought, yet, on the other hand, the hypothesis of extended 
atoms itself implies an imaginary separableness of each atom 
into parts, and again of these into parts, and so on without 
limit until unextended centres of force are reached: the con- 
sciousness of force being that which alone perpetually emerges. 
And I have ended by saying that " Matter then, in its ulti- 
mate nature, is as absolutely incomprehensible as Space and 
Time." In the second part of the work, in chapters treating 
of " The Indestructibility of Matter," " The Continuity of 
Motion," and " The Persistence of Force," I have at some 
length elaborated the view that Force is the ultimate com- 
ponent of thought into which our conceptions of external 
existences are resolvable. Summing up the first of these 
chapters I have said — " thus, then, by the indestructibility 
of matter, we really mean the indestructibility of the force 
with which matter affects us." At the close of the second of 
these chapters I have argued that " the continuity of motion, 
as well as the indestructibility of matter, is really known to 
us in terms of force ",..." that which defies suppression in 
thought, is really the force which the motion indicates." And 
then in the third chapter, having shown how the truths that 
matter is indestructible and motion continuous, can be known 
to us only as corollaries from the truth that force is persistent 
— that force is that " out of which our conceptions of Matter 
and Motion are built " — I have gone on to say that " by the 
Persistence of Force, we really mean the persistence of some 
Power which transcends our knowledge and conception." 
Throughout all which arguments the implication is that I 
hold Matter and Motion to be conditioned manifestations of 
this unknown Power. Being aware of the perversity of critics, 
I have, in the " Summary and Conclusion," again endeavoured 
to bar out misinterpretations. Here is one of the sentences 
it contains: — 

" Over and over again it has been shown in various ways, that the 
deepest truths we can reach, are simply statements of the widest uni- 
formities in our experience of the relations of Matter, Motion, and Force ; 
and that Matter, Motion, and Force are but symbols of the Unknown 
Reality. A Power of which the nature remains for ever inconceivable, and 
to which no limits in Time or Space can be imagined, works in uscorl.-iin 
effects. These effects have certain likenesses of kind, the most general of 
which we class together under the names of Matter, Motion, and Force." 



APPENDIX. 593 

In which sentences it is distinctly stated that I have through- 
out regarded Matter under the form present to consciousness, 
as a symbol — a certain conditioned effect wrought in us by 
the Unknown Power; and I have gone on to say that " the 
interpretation of all phenomena in terms of Matter, Motion, 
and Force, is nothing more than the reduction of our complex 
symbols of thought, to the simplest symbols; and when the 
equation has been brought to its lowest terms the symbols 
remain symbols still." 

It will scarcely be believed, and yet it is true, that not- 
withstanding all this, Mr. Guthrie ascribes to me the vulgar 
conceptions of Matter and Motion; argues as though I really 
think they are in themselves what they seem to our conscious- 
ness; and proceeds to criticize my views on this assumption. 
He ignores the conspicuous fact that Matter and Motion are 
both regarded by me as modes of manifestation of Force, and' 
that Force as we are conscious of it when by our own efforts 
we produce changes, is the correlative of that Universal Power 
which transcends consciousness. And then he ends the criti- 
cisms forming the second part of his work by saying " if this 
is not materialistic I do not know what is." He does not do 
this by inadvertence, though there would be little excuse even 
then; but he does it deliberately and with his eyes open. His 
next chapter begins: — 

" It will have been observed that in the preceding part of this criticism 
I have employed the term ' matter in motion,' and have avoided the use of 
the word ' force,' although it appears so prominently in the pages of Mr. 
Spencer's work. This has not been accidental, but by design, indicating 
as it does one of my main criticisms of Mr. Spencer. 

I can logically* take up one of two positions. The first recognises 
matter, whose properties are merely those of extension, which are capable 
of being described in terms of geometry and arithmetic. I can also recog- 
nise as tlie sole active properties of matter its modes and rates of motion 
— the motion, that is to say, of ultimate units, atoms, molecules, or 
masses, also capable of measurement. 

The second position recognises matter and its activity or activities — 
matter as endowed with force or forces/' 

Thus it will if observed thai having avowedly deali with 
Matter and Motion as modes of Force, I am u by design " criti- 
cized as though I bad not bo deali with them. Saving dis- 
tinctly -aid what I moan by Maltor and Motion, I am prac- 
tically told thai I shall not moan thai, hut shall mean what 

Mr. Guthrie means; and shall be deali with accordingly. Ami 
then, further, it will ho observed that of the two positions 
which Mr. Guthrie lays down as possible, ami proceeds to 



594 APPENDIX. 

argue upon as alternatives, one or other of which I must ac- 
cept, both speak of Matter and units of Matter as though 
actually existing under the forms thought by us; and the 
last, speaking of " matter as endowed with force or forces/' 
implies that whether in mass or in units, Matter is a space- 
occupying something which is in the one case inert and the 
other case made active by force with which it is " endowed " 
— force which is added to the inert something. Spite of all 
the pains I have taken to show that I regard Matter as itself 
a localized manifestation of Force — spite of all the evidence 
that our idea of a unit of Matter, or atom, is regarded by me 
simply as a symbol which the form of our thought obliges us 
to use, but which we cannot suppose answers to the reality 
without committing ourselves to alternative impossibilities 
of thought; I am debited with the belief that Matter actually 
consists " of space-occupying units, having shape and meas- 
urement." Though I have repeatedly made it clear that our 
ideas of Matter, Motion and Force are but the x, y, and z with 
which we work our equations, and formulate the various rela- 
tions among phenomena in such way as to express their order 
in terms of x, y and z — though I have shown that the realities 
for which x, y and z stand, cannot be conceived by us as actu- 
ally existing thus or thus without committing ourselves to 
alternative absurdities; yet questions are put implying that I 
must hold one or other hypothesis concerning these actual 
existences, and I am supposed to be involved in all the diffi- 
culties which arise. 

Another work devoted to the refutation of my views, is 
that of Professor Birks, — Modern Physical Fatalism and the 
Doctrine of Evolution, including an examination of Mr. H. 
Spencer's First Principles. Having dealt with the work of Mr. 
Guthrie, I cannot pass by that of Prof. Birks without raising 
the suspicion that I find some difficulty in dealing with it. 
Tndeed, I do find a difficulty, — a difficulty illustrated by that 
found in disentangling a skein of silk which has been pulled 
about by a child for half an hour. And just as the patience 
of a bystander would fail were he asked to look on until, by 
unravelling the tangled skein, its continuity was proved; so 
would the reader's attention be exhausted before I had recti- 
fied one-tenth part of the meshes and knots into which Prof. 
Birks lias twisted my statements. 

Abundant warrant for this assertion is furnished by the 



APPENDIX. 595 

very first paragraph succeeding the one in which Prof. Birks 
announces that he is about to take First Principles as repre- 
sentative of the " fatalistic theory." In this paragraph he 
represents me as asserting that ultimate religious ideas are 
" incapable of being conceived." He further says that ulti- 
mate scientific ideas are by me " pronounced equally incon- 
ceivable." Xow any clear-headed reader who accepted Prof. 
Birks' version of my views, would be led to debit me with the 
absurdity of saying that certain things which are put together 
in consciousness (ideas) cannot be put together in conscious- 
ness (conceived). To conceive is to frame in thought; and 
as every idea is framed in thought, it is nonsense to say of any 
idea that it cannot be conceived — nonsense which I have no- 
where uttered. My statement is that " Ultimate Scientific 
Ideas, then, are all representative of realities that cannot be 
comprehended; " and the like is alleged of ultimate religious 
ideas. The things which I say cannot be comprehended or 
conceived, are not the ideas , but the realities beyond con- 
sciousness for which the ideas in consciousness stand. In 
Professor Birks' statement, however, inconceivableness of the 
realities is transformed into inconceivableness of the answer- 
ing ideas! Further, at the end of this first paragraph which 
deals with me, I am represented as teaching that religion " is 
equivalent to Nescience or Ignorance alone." This statement 
is as far removed from the truth as the others. I have argued 
at considerable length, and in such various ways that I thought 
it impossible to misunderstand me, that though the Power 
universally manifest to us through phenomena, alike in the 
surrounding world and in ourselves, — the Power "in which 
we live and move and have our being," — is, and must ever 
remain, inscrutable; yet that the existence of this Inscruta- 
ble Power is the mosl certain of all truths. 1 have contended 
that while, to the intellectual consciousness, this Power, 
though unknowable in nature, must be ever present as exist- 
ing, it must he, to the emotional consciousness, an object to 
the sentimenl we call religious; since, in Bubstance if not in 
form, it answers to the creating and sustaining Power towards 
which the religious sentimenl is in Other eases drawn out. 

Yet though in the most emphatic way 1 have represented this 

unknown and unknowahle Power as the object-matter of re- 
ligion, Prof. Birks represents me as saying that the unknow- 
ablenessofil is the object-matter of religion! Though I hold 
that an Ultimate Being, known with absolute certainty as ex- 



596 APPENDIX. 

isting, but of whose nature we are in ignorance, is the sphere 
for religious feeling; he says I hold that the ignorance alone 
is the sphere for religious feeling! 

When in the first sixteen lines specifically treating of my 
views, these three cases occur, it may be imagined Avhat an 
intricate plexus of misrepresentations, misunderstandings, and 
perversions, fills the three hundred and odd pages forming 
the volume. Especially may it be anticipated that the meta- 
physical discussions, occup3 T ing five chapters, are so confused 
that it is next to impossible to deal with them. I must limit 
myself to giving a sample or two from this part of the work: 
one of them illustrating Prof. Birks' critical fairness, and the 
other his philosophic capacit} r . 

In his chapter on " The Eeality of Matter," he says (page 
111) " The sense of reality in things around us, Mr. Spencer 
has truly said, is one which no metaphysical criticisms can 
shake in the least; " and the rest of the paragraph is devoted 
to enlarging upon this proposition. The next paragraph 
begins — " ' Permanent possibilities of sensation ' is merely an 
ingenious phrase, to disguise and conceal a self-contradic- 
tion: " sundry antagonistic criticisms upon this phrase being 
appended. And then the opening words of the paragraph 
which succeeds are quoted from First Principles. Now since 
the refutation of my views is the aim of the work; and since 
both the preceding and succeeding passages specifically refer 
to my work; and since no other name is mentioned; every 
reader, not otherwise better instructed, will conclude that as 
a matter of course the phrase " permanent possibilities of 
sensation " is mine; and that the criticisms upon it tell against 
me. Even were there evidence that this phrase " permanent 
possibilities of sensation," expressed, or harmonized with, a 
doctrine entertained by me; yet as the phrase is not mine, the 
quoting it as mine would have been a literary misdemeanour. 
What then must be said of it when, instead of standing for 
any view of mine, it stands for an opposite view? Mr. Mill's 
expression, quoted by Prof. Birks as though it wore my ex- 
pression, belongs to a theory of knowledge entirely at variance 
with that set forth and everywhere implied in First Principles; 
and a theory which, where the occasion was fit, I have per- 
sistently combated (see Principles of Psychology, Part VII. 
" General Analysis "). And yet Prof. Birks tacitly makes me 
responsible for the incongruities which result from uniting 
this theory with the opposed theory. 



APPENDIX. 597 

From this sample of critical truthfulness let us pass now 
to a sample of critical acumen. 

In arguing against Hamilton and Mansell in § 26, I have 
said " It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowl- 
edge is a knowledge of appearances only, without at the same 
time conceiving a Eeality of which they are appearances; for 
appearance without reality is unthinkable." On page 121 
of his work, Prof. Birks, quoting the last five words of this 
sentence, continues — " This is true, when once the conception 
of distance has been gained by actual experience." And he 
then proceeds to comment upon visual impressions, illusive 
and other. Again on page 135, when criticizing my argument 
concerning the indestructibility of matter, Prof. Birks says : — 

" Matter, as knowable, is declared to be not the unseen reality, but the 
sensible appearances, or phenomenal matter alone. Phenomenal matter, 
it appears from daily and hourly experience, appears and disappears, 
perishes and is new-created continually .... The cloud vanishes, the 
star sets, or a mist blots it out, the drop evaporates, the ship melts into 
the yeast of waves, the candle is burnt away and comes to an end. The 
substance may last in another form, but the phenomenon or appearance 
is gone .... Thus, by the theory, of Matter, the Xoumenon, we know 
nothing 1 , and therefore cannot know that it is indestructible. Of Mat- 
ter, the Phenomenon, we may know much. And one main thing we 
know of it, proved by hourly experience, is that it both may be and con- 
tinually is destroyed. For an appearance is destroyed and perishes, when 
it ceases to appear." 

In which sentences, as in all accompanying sentences covering 
several pages, the implication is that Prof. Birks identifies 
appearance in the philosophical sense with appearance in the 
popular sense! Everywhere his expressions and arguments 
make manifest the fact that Prof. Birks thinks the meaning 
of phenomenon in metaphysical discussion, is no wider than 
thai implied by its derivation — something visible! Sounds, 
smells, testes, arc in his view not phenomena; nor arc touches, 
pressures, tensions. And hence it results thai since when a 
pound of salt is dissolved in water it ceases t" he visible, Its 
ace, phenomenally considered, ends: its continued power 
of affecting our senses by its weight, to the same extent as 
before the solution, no1 being considered as a phenomenal 
manifestation of its existence! 

In ?j 46, when commenting on the mental confusion which 
metaphysical discussions often produce, I have ascribed this 
in part to tic misleading connotations of the words " appear- 
ance' 1 and " phenomenon; " and after illustrating this have 
said: — 



598 APPENDIX. 

" So that the implication of uncertainty has infected the very word 
appearance. Hence, Philosophy, by giving it an extended meaning, leads 
us to think of all our senses as deceiving us in the same way that the eyes 
do ; and so make us feel ourselves floating in a world of phantasms. Had 
phenomenon and appearance no such misleading associations, little, if any, 
of this mental confusion would result. Or did we in place of them use 
the term effect, which is equally applicable to all impressions produced on 
consciousness through any of the senses, and which carries with it in 
thought the necessary correlative cause, with which it is equally real, we 
should be in little danger of falling into the insanities of idealism." 

This caution was intended for the general reader. That it 
might be needed by one who should undertake to deal with 
the work critically, never occurred to me. Not only, how- 
ever, does it seem that Prof. Birks (who quotes the last three 
words of the paragraph) needs such a caution, but it further 
seems that the caution is thrown away upon him. For just 
those misinterpretations of the words above pointed out, are 
the misinterpretations he makes. After this I shall, I think, 
be absolved from examining further his metaphysical criti- 
cisms. 

Of his criticisms upon various of the physical doctrines 
which this work contains, I will notice two only — the one 
because I wish to repudiate a view which, spite of abundant 
evidence to the contrary, he ascribes to me; and the other 
because, based as his statement is on a fact which he misin- 
terprets, it is desirable to give the right interpretation of it. 
On page 188, Prof. Birks says: — 

" The Essence of the doctrine held by Mr. Grove, Dr. Tyndall, and Mr. 
Spencer, and which the last has made the foundation of his whole theory 
of Physical Fatalism, is that there il, every moment, an unchanging 
total of Force, which never varies in amount, while it incessantly changes 
its form. The Force, then, which persists, must be a present existence. 
But Potential Energy is nothing of the kind. It is the sum of trillions 
of trillions of future possibilities of force, ranging through trillions of 
trillions of different future intervals of time." 

Now the tacit implication here is, that I accept the doc- 
trine of Potential Energy. The men of science named, with 
many others who might be added, hold that the total quan- 
tity of force remains constant. Against these it is urged that 
energy in becoming potential, ceases to exist; and that there- 
fore the doctrine is untrue. And being represented as hold- 
ing this doctrine in common with them, I am said to have based 
my general fabric of conclusions upon a fallacy. In the first 
place I have to ask on what authority Prof. Birks assumes that 
I hold the doctrine of Potential Energy in the way in which 
it is held by those named? And in the second place I have 



APPENDIX. 590 

to ask how it happens that Prof. Birks, elaborately criticizing 
my views step by step, deliberately ignores the passages in 
which I have repudiated this doctrine? In the chapter on 
" The Continuity of Motion," I have, at considerable length, 
given reasons for regarding the conception of Potential Energy 
as an illegitimate one; and have distinctly stated that I am 
at issue with scientific friends on the matter. Devoting, as 
Prof. Birks does, his chapter entitled " The Transformation 
of Force and Motion/' to the incongruities which result when 
the doctrine of the Persistence of Force is joined with the doc- 
trine of Potential Energy, as commonly received, it was doubt- 
less convenient to assume, spite of the direct evidence to the 
contrary, that I accept this doctrine, and am implicated in all 
the consequences. But there can be but one opinion respect- 
ing the honesty of making the assumption. Let me add that 
my rejection of this doctrine is not without other warrant 
than my own. Since the issue of the last edition of this work, 
containing the passages I have referred to, Mr. James Croll, 
no mean authority as a mathematician and physicist, has pub- 
lished in the Philosophical Magazine for Oct., 1876, p. 241, 
a paper in which he shows, I think conclusively, that the com- 
monly accepted view of Potential Energy cannot be sustained, 
but that energy invariably remains actual. I learn from him 
that he had in 1867 indicated briefly this same view. 

The remaining case, above adverted to as calling for com- 
ment, concerns my motive for suppressing a certain passage 
in the chapter on " Ultimate Scientific Ideas," and substitut- 
ing another passage. Before proceeding to state the reasons 
for this substitution, and to disprove the inferences which 
Prof. Birks draws from it, I may remark that it is usual in 
literary criticism to judge an author by the latest expression 
of his views. It is commonly thought nothing but fair thai 
if he has made an error (I say this hypothetically, for in this 
ease I have no error to acknowledge) he should be allowed the 
benefit of any correction he makes. Prof. Birks, however, 
apparently thinks that, moved by the high motive of "doing 
God service/ 1 be is warranted in taking the opposite course 
— perhaps thinks, indeed, thai he would fail of his duly did 
any regard for generous dealing prevenl him from making a 
point againsl an opponenl of his creed. 

Bnt now, saying no more aboul the ethics of criticism, I 
pass to the substantial question. In the firsl place, 1 have 
to point out thai in the passage suppressed I have not said 



GOO APPENDIX. 

that which Prof. Birks alleges. He represents me as assert- 
ing " that gravitation is a' necessary result of the laws of 
space " (p. 227). I have asserted no such thing. He says 
" There can be no a priori necessity that every particle should 
act on every other at all at every distance " (p. 222). I have 
nowhere said, or even hinted, that there is any such a priori 
necessity. The notion "that gravitation results by a fatal 
necessity from the laws of space/' which he ascribes to me 
(p. 229) is one which I should repudiate as utterly absurd, and 
one which is not in the remotest way implied by anything I 
have said. What I have said is that " Light, Heat, Gravita- 
tion, and all central forces, vary inversely as the squares of 
the distances," and that " this law is not simply an empirical 
one, but one deducible mathematically from the relations of 
space." Now what is here said to be " deducible mathe- 
matically from the relations of space ? " Not a thing, or a 
force, but a law. What is the law here said to be knowable 
a priori® The law of variation of any or every central force. 
And what is alone included in the assertion of this a priori 
law? Simply this, that given a central force and such is the 
law according to which it will vary. Nothing is alleged re- 
specting the existence of any central force. Does Prof. Birks 
contend that if I say that light, proceeding from a- centre, 
necessarily varies inversely as the square of the distance, I 
thereby say that the existence of light itself is known a priori 
as a result of space relations ? When I assert that of the heat 
radiating in all directions from a point, the quantity falling 
on a given surface necessarily decreases as the square of the 
distance increases, do I thereby assert the necessary existence 
of the heat which conforms to this law? Why then do I, in 
asserting that the law of variation of gravity " results by a 
fatal necessity from the laws of space " simultaneously assert 
" that gravitation results by a fatal necessity from the laws 
of space?" Prof. Birks, however, because I assert the first 
says I assert the second. My proposition — Central forces vary 
inversely as the squares of the distances, he actually trans- 
forms into the proposition — There is a cosmical force which 
varies inversely as the squares of the distances. And debiting 
me with the last as identical with the first, proceeds, after 
his manner, to debit me with various resulting absurdities. 

Having thus shown that the passage in question contains 
no such statement as that which Prof. Birks says it contains, 
I go on to show that I have not removed this passage because 



APPENDIX. 601 

I have abandoned the belief it embodies. Clear proof is at 
hand. If Prof. Birks will turn to the " Replies to Criticisms," 
contained in the third volume of my Essays: Scientific, Politi- 
cal and Speculative, (pp. 334-33?) he will find that I have 
there defended the above proposition against a previous attack; 
and assigning, as I have done, justification for it, I have shown 
no sign of relinquishing it. Why, then, Prof. Birks will ask, 
did I make the change in question? Had his mental attitude 
been other than it is, he might readily have divined the reason. 
Knowing, as he seemingly does, that this doctrine which he 
criticizes had been already criticized in a similar manner (for 
otherwise he would scarcely have discovered the change I 
have made), he might have seen clearly enough that the pas- 
sage was suppressed simply to deprive opponents of the oppor- 
tunity of evading the general argument of the chapter by 
opening a side issue on a point not essential to its argument. 

The chapter has for its subject, certain incapacities of the 
human mind — a subject, by the way, on which theologians 
are never tired of enlarging when it suits their own purpose, 
but on which an antagonist may not enlarge without exciting 
their anger. Various examples of these incapacities are given, 
to justify and enforce the conclusion drawn. Among these 
was originally included the example in question. Misrepre- 
senting it as Prof. Birks misrepresents it, another writer had 
before him similarly based on his misrepresentation sundry 
animadversions. Though still regarding the statement I had 
actually made (not the one ascribed to me) as valid, I con- 
cluded that it would be best to remove the stumbling-block 
out of the way of future readers; and therefore decided to 
replace the illustration by another. The resl of the chapter 
remains exactly as it was. and its argumenl is not in the re- 
motest degree affected by this substitution. Nevertheless, 
Prof. Birks, wrongly describing the nature of the illustration, 
and wrongly attributing the removal of the illustration to 
change in my belief, also wrongly convoys the impression thai 
the doctrine which the Illustration contained had Borne vital 
connection with the general argnmenl of the chapter and with 
the doctrine of the work; and by conveying this Impression 
calls forth exultation from religious periodicals. 

Were I to deal with Prof. Birks 3 book page by page, a 
much larger hook than his would be required to expose his 
mis-statements, perversions, confusions. The above exam- 
ples musl suffice. 1 will add only thai in one belief of his I 

40 



602 APPENDIX. 

cordially agree with him. At the close of his preface he says — 
" I think that those who take the pains to read my strictures, 
and compare them with the statements of the work to which 
they are a reply, will find the effort repaid by a clearer appre- 
hension of the topics in debate." And I venture to join with 
this the expression of my belief that if readers follow Prof. 
Birks' tacit suggestion, " a clearer apprehension of the topics 
in debate " will not result from acceptance of his criticisms. 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 

(For this Index the Author is indebted to F. Howard Collins, Esq., 
of Edgbaston, Birmingham.) 



u A priori truth." denned, 183 n. 

Absolute, the : Mansel on conception of, 
40^, 78-81, 89-99; also Hamilton, 
76-8, E 

Adaptation, an instance of equilibration, 
526. 

Albumen, number of atoms in, 423. 

Alimentary canal, evolution of, 399-401. 

Amalgamation, the same as integration, 
586. 

America, Central, effects of subsidence, 
4:.}. 

Animals, see Biology. 

Annealing, molecular action of, 301. 

Annulosn, longitudinal and transverse 
integration in, 323. 

Appearance and phenomenon, mislead- 
ing associations of, 161, 597. 

Army, evolution of an, 405. 

Arnold, M., on the formula of evolution, 
581. 

Arts, the: integration shown by, 884-7; 
also heterogeneity, 860 I ; definite- 
ness, -'-- I : and multiplied effects, 168. 
ria, artistic development in, 860 I. 
- and Longi- 
tudinal integration in, 82 1. 

Astronomy, various conceptions of solar 
motion, 105 ; persistence of force ex 
emplified by planetary motion, 192; 
transformation and equivalence of 
forces, 21 1 8 ; the laws of motion, 
; rl ■. thm of motion, 264 6 : si 
dereal and solar integration, 318, 840; 
increased deflniteness of evolving solar 
'■ mi, ::7"> ; greater deflniteness of 
prevision in, : >7 ; redistributions of 
motion in evolving solar system, 896; 
instabilit) of the homogeneous illus- 
trated i'> stellar distribution and 
by the nebular hypo- 
tln- and by planetary or 



e 



bits, 421 ; the multiplication of ef- 
fects, 446-8 ; segregation, 479 ; inde- 
>endent, or perfect moving equili- 
brium, 500; Equilibrium mobile, 501, 
502 ; calculations to disprove the 
nebular hypothesis, 504 n. ; equilibra- 
tion illustrated, by nebular genesis, 
503 ; by the planetary motions, 504-6 ; 
and by solar heat diffusion, 506-8 ; 
terrestrial disintegration, 540 ; univer- 
sal evolution and dissolution, 541-9 ; 
Sir J. Herschel on stellar concentra- 
tion, 545 ; gravitation of magellanic 
clouds, 544. 
Atheism unthinkable, 33. 

Babixet, J., on nebular hypothesis, 
504 n. n 

Baer, K. E. von, the formula of, 347. 

Ball and string, perceptible and latent 
activity shown by, 189. 

Beckett, Sir E., Origin of tin Laws oj 
Nature, 577. 

Bi -.iln' >ex of, 454. 

Beliefs: usually founded on fact, 8-6; 
the common groundwork of opposed, 
6 11: i.w also Religion.) 

Biology : relativity of knowledge and 
the nature of life, B4 9; definition "t* 
life, s, '> : transformation and equiva- 
lence of forces, 216 9; laws of motion, 
240 1 ; rhythm of motion, 270 8 ; uni 
versa) presence of integration and die 
integration, 294 ; amount of contained 

motion in animal- and plants, 810— i ; 

and their mutual interdependence, 
821 •'» ; heterogeneity of evolving or 
ganisma. 8 1 1 7, 851 ; Von Beer's foi 
mula, :'.17 ; increasing deflnitem 
mammalian development, 878 Bl ; has 
increasing deflniteness characterized 
evoh Ing Bora and fauna '. 



m-\ 



604 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 



tributions of motion of evolving func- 
tions, 398-401 ; instability of the ho- 
mogeneous, 424-30 ; multiplication of 
effects, 452-60 ; probable effects of up- 
heavals in East Indian Archipelago, 
456-8 ; segregation, 482-6 ; equilibra- 
tion, 511-6 ; dissolution, 535-7. 

Bird, wounded, apologue, 71-3, 460. 

Birks, T. K., on First Principles, 594-602. 

Blood, mental effects ot cerebral supply, 
223. 

Body : distinguishable from space, 194, 
233. 

Bones : integration in ossifying, 322 ; 
heterogeneity in various races, 351 ; 
increased definiteness, 380 ; segrega- 
tion in ossifying, 482-6. 

Boscovich, K. J., theory of matter, 54-7, 
61. 

Botany : transformation and equiva- 
• lence of forces, 216-9; laws of mo- 
tion, 239-44 ; contained motion, 310-4 ; 
mutual interdependence of animals 
and plants, 321, 325 ; heterogeneity of 
evolving plants, 344-7 ; has increas- 
ing definiteness characterized evolv- 
ing flora ? , 381 ; instability of the 
homogeneous, 424-30; eifects of up- 
heavals in East Indian Archipelago, 
456-8 j plant classification showing 
psychical segregation, 486-8. 

Brain : causes influencing action of, 223 ; 
integration of growth, 321. 

Brewster, Sir D., on the nebular hy- 
pothesis, 504 n. 

Bronze, effects of substitution for stone, 
464. 

Bullets, projection of, 202. 

Burney, Dr. C, on musical development, 
366. 

Candle : chemical explanation of burn- 
ing, not philosophical, 284-6 ; effects 
on igniting, 444. 

Cannon, rhythm consequent upon dis- 
charge, 261. 

Caoutchouc, introduction in England of, 
467. 

Cause, the First : infinite and absolute, 
37-40; Mansel on, 40-4; relativity of 
knowledge and inconceivability of, 95 ; 
is unknowable, 110-6. 

Cause and effect, popular misconceptions 
of, 180. 

Centipedes, unintegrated and homoge- 
neous motions, 401. 

Change, universality of, 291-3. 

Chemistry: transformation of chemical 
action 'into other modes of force, 209, 
210; heat as facilitating change, 302; 
Btability of elements and compounds, 
303-5 ; increasing definiteness of, 387 ; 



instability of the homogeneous, 413, 
421-4 ; segregation of analysis and crys- 
tallization, 476 ; dissolution, 538-40." 

Cilia, homogeneous and indefinite move- 
| ments of, 401. 

Classification : a progressive integration, 
332; considered psychologically with 
segregation, 486-8. 

Coherence {see Integration). 

Coleridge, S. T., verbal " desynonymiza- 
tion," 432. 

Colloids, instability of, 305. 

Comte, A. : co-ordination of knowledge, 
132; on the nebular hypothesis, 504 n. 

Concentration {see Integration). 

Conception : the actual and symbolic 
compared, 26-30 ; the preliminary and 
complex, 314. 

Consciousness (see Psychology). 

Conservation of energy, objections to 
the term, 194 n. 

Conservatism : advantages of a theo- 
logical, 119-22; contrasted with re- 
form, 525. 

Contradictories and correlatives, Hamil- 
ton on, 91-4. 

Creation, an inconceivable hypothesis, 
33-7. 

Croll, J., on potential energy, 599. 

Crystalloids, stability of, 305. 

Crystals : simple evolution illustrated 
by, 806 ; influences affecting segrega- 
tion, 477 ; conform to law of dissolu- 
tion, 538. 

Dancing : rhythm of, 274 ; originated 
with poetry and music, 364-9. 

Darwin, C. : date of publication of Oriyin 
of $pecies,x'\\ " natural selection " and 
multiplication of effects, 458 n. ; diver- 
gence of character, 486. 

Death : are we progressing to omni- 
present? 527; its relation to dissolu- 
tion, 535-7. 

Decomposition, an increase in indefinite 
heterogeneity, 372-5. 

Definiteness, a characteristic of evolu- 
tion : the evidence from astronomy, 
375, 387; geology, 375, 376-8; meteo- 
rology, 378 ; embryology, 378-81 ; 
biology with botany, 381 '; sociologv, 
383-5, "388; philology, 385; mathema- 
tics, 386; mechanics, 387, 389; chem- 
istry, 388; physiology, 388; the arts, 
389; literature, 390;' is a secondary 
phenomenon of evolution, 391. 

Definition, difficulties attending, 139. 

Disease : the rhythm of, 278 ; ah increase 
in indefinite heterogeneity. 372-5 ; 
hereditary transmission of 429 ; exem- 
plifies multiplication of effects, 453. 

Dissolution: definition of, 295,536; in- 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 



605 



terdependent with evolution, 531 ; law 
supported from sociology, 532-5 ; bi- 
ology, 535-7 ; geology and chemistry, 
537— 40 ; astronomy, 540 ; considered 
universally with evolution, 542-9, 563. 

Divine Eight, substituted lor belief in 
divine origin, 6. 

Division of labour, social : an increase 
in heterogeneity, 355-7 ; illustrates in- 
stability of the homogeneous, 430 ; 
multiplication of effects, 4t>2— 7 ; and 
motion along line of least resistance, 
4 ( Jl. 

Dress, progressive heterogeneity of, 585. 

Ea.p.th, the, conceptions only symbolic, 
26 ; (see aUo Geology.) 

Earthquakes : exemplify laws of motion, 
240 ; periodicity of, 209 ; a geologist's 
not a philosophical explanation, 2S4-6 ; 
an increase in indefinite heterogeneity, 
375. 

Effects, multiplication of: evidence from 
astronomy, 448-8 ; heat, 44S ; geology, 
448-52,456 ; meteorology, 450, 452 ; em- 
bryology, 453-5 ; botany and zoology, 
456-8 ; philology, 459 ; psychology, 
400-2 ; sociology, 462-8 ; corollary from 
persistence of force, 46S-70 ; final sum- 
mary, 562. 

Ego and non-ego, 156-8. 

Egypt, artistic development in, 360-4. 

Electricity : transformation into other 
modes of force, 208, 210 ; rhythm of 
the current, 261. 

Elie de Beaumont, L., the earth's irregu- 
larity, 214. 

Embryology : connection between vital 
and physical forces, 218; exemplifies 
progressive integration, 321-5 ; in- 
crease in heterogeneity of all organisms, 
844 -7 : deflniteness of mammalian de- 
velopment, 878-81 ; instability of the 
homogeneous, 424-80; multiplication 
of effects. 458-6 : Bex dependent on 
incidenl forces, 454; Kirkman's criti- 
cism. 

Emotio .■ ohology ). 

Energy : " actual"'' and •• potential," 189, 
198 /'.. 195 : the author assumed to hold 
doctrine of potential, 

Engine {s& Bleohai 

Eniozoa, development of, 454. 

Equilibration: tour orders of, 500; law 
supported from astronomy, 
geol I : biology and physi- 

h .' 51 1-6 ; psychology . 51 

. 520 - ; and persistence of 
for© tmmary. 582. 

Equilibrium, unstable, denned, 412. 

Equilibrium mobile^ instances of, 499, 
501. 



Error, definition of, 87. 

Ethnology : evolution of mankind, an 
increase in heterogeneity, 353 ; the 
savage and the European compared, 
460 ; segregation of physical and. psy- 
chical conditions, 486-8. 

Europe, national integration in, 327, 5S5. 

Evolution : superior to the word involu- 
tion, 296 ; an integration of matter and 
dissipation of motion, 296, 315 ; simple 
and compound, 297-300, 306-8, 339 ; 
with dissolution the total history of 
existence, 315 ; characterized by coher- 
ence, 337 ; relative nature of the defi- 
nition of, 340 ii. ; a change from an in- 
coherent homogeneity to a coherent 
heterogeneity, etc., 371 ; increase in 
definiteness a secondary phenomenon, 
391 ; a change from an indefinite, in- 
coherent, homogeneity, etc., 391 ; final 
definition, 407 ; persistence of force 
underlies phenomena of, 409, 560-3 ; 
resolutions accompanying redistribu- 
tions of matter and motion, 410 ; aid 
rendered by multiplication of effects, 
444-6 ; which is deducible from per- 
sistence of force, 469 ; aid rendered by 
segregation, 471-9 ; relation to law of 
equilibration, 496-503 ; can end only 
in the greatest perfection, 530; mutu- 
ally interdependent with dissolution, 
531; considered universally with dis- 
solution, 542-9, 503 ; the final sum- 
mary, 558-8 ; universality of, 558-00 ; 
iustilied by unification of developing 
knowledge, 565-7 ; the formula criti- 
cised by Tait, 575-82 ; Kirkman, 577- 
82; M. Arnold. 581 : North American 
Review, 581 ; T. E. Cliffe Leslie, 5«3- 
91; M. Guthrie, 591-4; and Birks, 
594 -802; traits associated in the defi- 
nition must be considered as a whole, 
584 ; is dependent on conditions, 588, 
590. 

Existence, the cognition of, 66-8. 

Explanation, limitation of, 71-5. 

Levelopment of the, 431. 

Faculty, capacity and desire usually 

associated, 462. 
Fashion: rhythm of, 278; progressive 

heterogeneity of dress, 585. 
Fibrine, number of atoms in, •t-_'. , >. 
Figures, mental development and, 179. 

eliefin ruler'a unlimited power, 6. 
First Cause (■- ( lause, the First I. 

PrincipUs, aim and BCOpe of, wii. 

Implements, laok of precision and 
deflniteness, 

V i, equilibration of quantity to forca 

expended, 512 14. 

: tacomprehensibility of, 60 -•"■ ; un- 



60G 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 



derlies time, space, matter, and mo- 
tion, 172; the intrinsic and extrinsic 
forms of, 194-6 ; persistence of rela- 
tions among various forms of, 201 ; 
the various forms qualitatively and 
quantitatively correlated, 205-10 ; reso- 
lutions accompanying redistributions 
of matter and motion, 410 ; heteroge- 
neous effect of action on homogeneous 
aggregate, 437 ; and the multiplied 
effects, 442-6; Tait's definitions of, 

• 576. 

Force, persistence of (see Persistence). 

Forces : of attraction and repulsion sym- 
bols, not realities, 232-4 ; persistence of 
force underlies parallelogram of, 255 ; 
persistence of relations among, a philo- 
sophical truth, 282. 

Forces, the transformation and equiva- 
lence of: shown in astronomy, '211-3 ; 
geology, 213-6 ; biology, 216-9 ; psy- 
chology and physiology, 219-26 ; so- 
ciology, 226-9 ; corollary from persist- 
ence of force, 229 ; a philosophical 
truth, 283. 

Generalities, when unsuggestive, 578- 
83. 

Geology : the transformation and equi- 
valence of forces, 213-6 ; laws of mo- 
tion, 238-40 ; rhythm of aqueous and 
igneous action, 266-70; changes un- 
dergone by species, 272 ; segregation of 
silica in porcelain clay, 303 ; terrestrial 
integration, 319-21 ; and heterogeneity, 
341-4 ; the record consistent with evo- 
lution from simple to complex, 347- 
51 ; indefinite heterogeneity of earth- 
quakes, 375; increased definiteness 
inferable from terrestrial structure, 
375-8; molar motion originating in 
molecular, 393 ; redistributions of mo- 
tion from earth's evolution, 397 ; hete- 
rogeneity of trap rock, 414; physi- 
cal ertects of instability of the ho- 
mogeneous, 421 : also chemical, 422-4 ; 
multiplied effects of diminishing ter- 
restrial heat, 448 ; and of aqueous and 
atmospheric agencies, 449-52 ; prob- 
able effects of upheavals in East In- 
dian archipelago, 456-60 ; segregation 
of aqueous and igneous action, 480-2 ; 
equilibration illustrated, 509-11 ; also 
law of dissolution, 538-40; the earth's 
disintegration, 540. 

Glass, molecular effect of annealing, 301. 

Government: authority and functions 
of, 5-11 ; evolution of, marked by in- 
creasing heterogeneity, 358-5 ; also in- 
tegration, heterogeneity, and definite- 
ness, 406; and by equilibration, 524-7. 

Granite, segregation of, 481. 



Gravity : incomprehensibility of, 62, 105; 
shows " latent" and " perceptible " ac- 
tivity, 190 ; terrestrial effects of, 213-6 ; 
effect on vascular system, 243. 

Grove, Sir W. K., The Correlation of the 
Physical Forces, 209. 

Growth : laws of motion exemplified, 
240-4; universal presence of, 292; in- 
tegration of, 294 ; shows molecular be- 
coming molar motion, 393. 

Guthrie, M. On 21r. Spencer's Formula 
of Evolution, 591-4. 

Hamilton, Sir W. K. : the philosophers 
agreeing in relativity of knowledge, 
71 ; on the absolute and infinite, 76-8, 
89-99 ; correlatives, 91-3 ; trustworthi- 
ness of consciousness, 143. 

Harvests, correlation of vital and physi- 
cal forces, 227-9. 

Heart, the : spiral form of, 242 ; mental 
influences on, 246 ; increasing definite- 
ness of development, 380. 

Heat: of air breathing animals, 134; 
transformation into other modes of 
force, 206-8, 210; Joule's mechanical 
equivalent, 210; terrestrial effects of 
solar, 213-6 ; a cause of condensation 
or diffusion, 292, 293 ; molecular ef- 
fects, 301 ; chemical stability, 303-5 ; 
simple and compound evolution illus- 
trated, 305-8 ; amount possessed by 
organisms, 309, 310-4 ; instability of 
the homogeneous, 413 ; multiplied ef- 
fects of the terrestrial decrease, 421-4, 
448 ; action on simple and complex 
combinations, 423 ; action of, on sphere, 
438 ; aids segregation in granite, 481 ; 
equilibration shown by solar, 506-8; 
necessary for organic and inorganic 
dissolution, 536, 538, 540. 

Helmholtz, H. : on solar heat diffusion, 
507 ; terrestrial motion and the tidal 
wave, 509; thermal equivalent of 
earth's motion, 540. 

Heredity, the instability of the homo- 
geneous, 428-30. 

Herschel, Sir J. F. W.: a rotating ethe- 
rial medium, 505 ; the sun's rays the 
ultimate source of every motion, 509 
n. ; stellar concentration, 545. 

Heterogeneity of matter: its increase 
during evolution shown by astronomy, 
340 ; meteorology, 343 ; geology, 341-4 ; 
biology with embryology and botany, 
344-7 : paleontology, 347-51 ; sociol- 
ogy, 351-7 ; ethnology, 352; philology, 
357-60 ; the arts and literature, 360-9. 

Heterogeneity of motion (see Motion). 

Hieroglyphics, the development of, 359. 

Hinton, J .,on direction ot' organic growth, 
240-3. 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 



CO' 



History, definition of complete, 288-90. 

Homogeneous, instability of the, 412-0; 
evidence from mechanics, 413 ; astro- 
nomy, 416-21 ; geology, 414, 421 ; 
chemistry, 413, 421-4; meteorology, 
424; biology with embryology and 
botany, 424-30; psychology, 431-4; 
philology, 432 ; sociology, 434-7 : co- 
rollary from persistence of force, 437- 
41 ; relation to segregation, 473; sum- 
mary. 560. 

Huxley, Prof. T. H. : on persistence of 
force, 194 //. ; Persistant Types, 349; 
osseous segregation, 484. 

Ideas : and impressions, 145-60, 174; ad- 
vantages of preliminary, 314. 

Impulsiveness, influences modifying, 
401. 

India: domestic and political fixity in, 
; segregation or physical condi- 
tions in, 489. 

Induction, necessary to verify deduc- 
tion, 317. 

Infinite, the: Mansel on conception of, 
k 78-81, 89-94; also Hamilton, 70- 
I -94. 

Insanity, correlation of the mental and 
physical forces. 225. 

Insects, transformation of physical and 
vital force exemplified by, 219. 

Integration of matter: and disintegra- 
tion, 291 ; the primary aspect of evo- 
lution, supported by astronomy, 318 ; 
geology, 319-21 ; biology, with em- 
bryology and botany. :j-Jl-5; sociol- 
ogy, 826-9; philology, 329-32; sci- 
ence and meteorology, 832 ; industrial 
and aesthetic arte, 834 7. 

Integration of motion set Motion). 

Involution and evolution, the terms, 296. 

Iron, molecular rearrangement in, 300. 

Japan, effect of European civilization 

in, 588. 
Joule, J. 1'., mechanical equivalent of 

heat, 210. 

K \\t, Iin., Bpace and time forma of the 
intellect. 51. 

Kirkman, T. P., on the formula of evo- 
lution. 577 BSL 

Knowledge : thoughl transcended by, 16 ; 

/•--'///.. showing limitations, 68; rela- 

tivitr definition of complete, 

unification of developing. 

Lwoi \..i ■ Philol 
Laplace, P. >.. on nebulous ri n^- d<-\ slop- 
mont, 419, 479. 



Latham, R. G., on inflexional language, 
331. 

Laughter, laws of motion exemplified 
by, 247. 

Law : of continuity, 53, 59 ; uniformity 
of, 203 ; the author's belief in univer- 
sality of, 347 n.\ increase in definite- 
ness of evolving statutes, 3S4 ; develop- 
ing systems, and the formula of evo- 
lution, 5S9-91. 

Leibnitz, G. W., theory of matter, 55. 

Leslie, T. E. Cliti'e, on the formula of 
evolution, 583-91. 

Liberty : general establishment of, 7 ; 
equilibration of, 527. 

Lite : and relativity of knowledge, 84-9; 
definition of, 86. 

Light": transformed into other modes of 
force, 209; compound rhythm of 
interference, 262 ; like mode of pro- 
duction with sound, 334 ; segregation 
exemplified, 478. 

Literature: integration of, 336 ^hetero- 
geneity, 309 ; increasing truth of rep- 
resentation, 390 ; multiplied eilects of, 
40S. 

Liver, development of, 380. 

Logic, definition of " a priori " and 
" necessary " truths, 193 n. 

Magxetism : transformation into other 
modes of force, 208, 209; illustrates 
laws of motion, 235; rhythm of varia- 
tions, 266 ; consequent on added mo- 
tion, 301 ; segregative power, 473 ; 
equilibration and the solar-spot cycle, 
510. 

Majorities, usually in error, 5. 

Manifestations, tile vivid and faint, 147- 

60, 174. 
'■' I Fashion, essay on, 354. 

Mansel, H. L. : on the first cause, the 
absolute and the infinite, 40 1, 7 v Bl, 
'. : conceptions of rational the- 
ology, 42: consciousness of self, 67; 
attributes being asserted of the abso- 
lute 110. 

Marriages, equilibration to means of sub- 
sistence, 520. 

Marsupiatia^ integration of generative 
Bystem in, 824. 

Mat* rialism and evolution, 56€ 

Mathematics: figures and mental devel- 
opment, 179; increase in definiteness, 

Matter: divisibility. 62; incomprehensi- 
bility, 52 7: solidity, 58; theories of 
B — 1\ ion, 54 6, 6] : Leibnitz, 55 ; and 
■ >n, 64 6, 61 ; connection with 
force, 60 8; consciousness of, 170; in- 
destructibility, 176 8, 188 ; oreation 
and annihilation, ontninkable, 180 2; 



608 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 



and space, 233 ; indestructibility of, 
a philosophical truth, 281, 286 ; mo- 
lecular motion and rearrangement of 
parts, 300-3 ; contained motion in or- 
ganic, 308-10, 310-4 ; effect of uniform 
force on uniform, 442-6. 

Maxwell, J. Clerk, on Thomson and 
Tait's Treatise on Natural Philosophy, 
576. 

Measurement, unable to prove persist- 
ence of force, 197-9. 

Mechanics : progressive integration of 
machinery, 334 ; increase in mdefinite- 
ness of, 387, 389 ; instability of the 
homogeneous illustrated, 413 ; multi- 
plied effects of locomotive engine, 465 ; 
dependent moving equilibrium shown 
by steam engine, 500. 

Metaphysics : sense of illusion after read- 
ing, 161 ; antagonism resulting from 
word real, 162. 

Meteorology : laws of motion exempli- 
fied, 238-40 ; also rhythm of motion, 
266-9 ; effect of heat on clouds, 293 ; 
visibility and audibility of objects pre- 
ceding rain, 333 ; climatic effects of 
terrestrial irregularity, 343; defmite- 
ness of phenomena of, 378 ; molar, 
originating in molecular motion, 393 ; 
redistributions of motion caused by 
earth's evolution, 397 ; instability of 
the homogeneous, 424 ; multiplied 
effects of solar action, 450 ; probable 
effects of Central American subsidence, 
451 ; segregating effect of climate, 
489. 

Microscopes, great exactness of, 389. 

Mill, J. S., on limit to industrial progress, 
523. 

Monotremata, integration of generative 
system in, 324. 

Morbid growths, an increase in indefi- 
nite heterogeneity, 372-5. 

Motion : incomprehensibility of, 57-60 ; 
relativity, 68 ; changing 'to rest, 59 ; 
conception derived from experiences 
of force, 170 ; continuity not self-evi- 
dent, 184 ; Newton's first law, 186, 576 ; 
" latent " and " perceptible," 186-91 ; 
of celestial bodies and pendulum, 186- 
8 ; continuity known in terms of force, 
191 ; and involves its persistence, 192 ; 
transformed into heat, electricity, &c, 
205-10 ; along line of least resistance, 
234-6 : general laws of direction, 236 ; 
laws supported by astronomy, 236-8 ; 
meteorology, 238-40 ; geology, 238-40 ; 
biology and botany, 240-4 ; psychology, 
244-8 ; sociology, 248-54 ; spiral direc- 
tion, 241 ; persistence of force under- 
lies laws of direction, 254-8; universal 
rhythm of, 259-64; illustrated from 



astronomy, 264-6 ; magnetism, 266 ; 
meteorology, 266-9 ; geology, 266-70 ; 
biology with physiology and palaeon- 
tology, 270-3, 398-401 ; psychology 
with the arts, 273-6, 364-9, 517 ; soci- 
ology, 276-9, 526 ; corollary from per- 
sistence of force, 279-81 ; final sum- 
mary, 553 ; continuity of, a philosoph- 
ical truth, 282 ; also law of direction, 
283 ; facility of an aggregate to undergo 
rearrangement, 298-300 -"through space, 
and effects of incident forces, 298-300 ; 
amount in organic matter, 308-314 ; in- 
tegration, heterogeneity, and distinct- 
ness of its evolution, 392-6 ; shown by 
geology, 393 ; meteorology, 393, 397 ; 
astronomy, 395 ; biology with physi- 
ology, 398-401; psychology, 401-5; 
philology, 402-4 ; sociology, 405 ; final- 
ly results in cessation, 496-8 ; molar, 
changing to molecular, and its relation 
to universal evolution and dissolution, 
542-9 ; final summary of the laws of 
direction, 553. 

Mountains : ryhthm in rain caused by, 
267 ; altitude and thickness of the 
earth's crust, 320, 343, 448. 

Movement (see Motion.) 

Multiplication of effects (see Effects). 

Muscle : transformation and equivalence 
of its action to the sensations causing 
it, 221-3; contraction caused by in- 
terrupted nerve discharge, 274; equi- 
librium of expenditure to nutrition, 
513. 

Music: rhythm of, 274; and progressive 
integration, 336 ; originated with poet- 
ry and dancing, 364-9. 

Natural selection : implies change along 
lines of least resistance, 244 ; relation 
to multiplication of effects, 459. 

Nature : Thomson and Tait's Treatise on 
Natural Philosophy, 576 ; Force, by 
Tait, 576 ; Beckett's Origin of the Laws 
of Nature, 577. 

Nebular hypothesis (see Astronomy). 

Nerves, transverse integration of, in un- 
nulosa and Crustacea 323 (see also Psy- 
chology). 

Newton, Sir I. : theory of matter, 54-7, 
61 ; on force of gravity, 62, 105 ; his 
first law of motion, 186, 576. 

Nitrogen : instability of compounds, 305 ; 
amount in animals and plants, 311. 

North American Review, on formula of 
evolution, 5S1. 

Object and subject, 156-60, 174. 
Orange and Earth's crust, 449. 
Organic matter (see Matter). 
Origin of /Species, The, date of publica- 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 



609 



tion, vi.; "natural selection" and mul- 
tiplication of effects, 459. 

Ostrich, osseous segregation in, 483. 

Owen, Sir P., on anoplotkerium and 
paleotherium, 350. 

Pain, varying rhythm of, 275. 

Painting \eee Arte). 

Palaeontology : rhythm of motion shown 
by, 272 ; its record consistent with evo- 
lution, 347-61. 

Pantheism, inconceivability of, 33. 

Pendulum : " latent " and " perceptible " 
activity. 186-y; alteration of rate by 
locality", 395. 

Persistence of force : underlies continuity 
of motion, 192; transcends demonstra- 
tion, 197-200 ; definition, 200 ; under- 
lies uniformity of law, 203 ; and trans- 
formation and equivalence of forces, 
229 ; and laws of motion, 254-S ; and 
rhythm of motion, 279-81 ; a philo- 
sophical and universal truth, 282 ; un- 
derlies phenomena of evolution, 409 ; 
and instability of the homogeneous, 
437^41 ; and multiplication of effects, 
468-70 ; and segregation, 493-5 ; and 
law of equilibration, 526-30; sum- 
mary, showing it to be the ultimate 
truth, 552 ; and evolution to result 
from, 560-3. 

Phenomenon and appearance : their mis- 
leading; associations, 162 ; misinterpret- 
ed by Birks, 597. 

Philology: language and the dispersion 
of mankind, 14; errors of verbal 
misinterpretation, 161-5 ; integration, 
shown by agglutination of language, 
329-32 ; by fewer number of syllables, 
880; by increasing coherence, 331 ; and 
greater complexity of Bentenw -. 
incoherence of Chinese, ; ; ; ;l : Latham 
on inflexional languages, 881 : com- 
pleteness of English language, 857 : 
increase in heterogeneity of written 
and Bpokea language, 857HJ0; devel- 
opment of writing. 862; integration, 
heterogeneity, and denniteness of 
evolving speech, 885, 402 4 : heteroge- 
neity, "desynonymization" of words, 
iRshea racial community, 
459 : unsuggestn en< u of abstract 
wor ■ Leslie on language and 

law oi evolution, 

Philosophers, and relativity of knowl- 
edge, To. 

Philosophy : hypothesis of ftrsl 1 
87 i" : Hamilton on the absolute and 
infinite, . 1 ; al Mansel, 

40 4, 78-81, -•' '.'•.' ; varied interpreta- 
tiona of, 180 B ; completely unified 
knowled general and spe 



cial, 136 ; must assume intuitions 
necessary to thought, 139 ; and justify 
them, 140-2 : also assume conscious- 
ness trustworthy, 142-4; the postu- 
lates adopted, 159, 174; errors from 
verbal misinterpretation, 161-5; re- 
lation to science, 282-7 ; resume of 
the laws constituting it, 282; should 
seek law of continuous redistribution 
of matter and motion, 287; and unify 
history of existences, 288-90; formula 
must comprehend evolution and diffu- 
sion, 291 ; induction necessary to 
verify deduction, 317 ; summary of its 
relation to evolution and dissolution, 
551-6 ; to science and religion, 564 ; 
and conclusion, with the doctrines re- 
stated, 568-72. 

Phosphorus in the brain, 223. 

Physiology: knowing, illustrated by 
processes of, 72; transformation and 
equivalence of forces, 220-4 ; rhythm 
of motion, 270; increasing dennite- 
ness of, 387; integration of alimentary 
canal, 399-401 ; correlation of organs 
to functions, 511-6. 

Physiology, Transcendental, and Origin 
of Species, dates of publication, v-v'i. 

Piano, thought and concept of, 97. 

Pleasure, varying rhythm of, 275. 

Poetry: rhythm of, 274; originated 
with music and dancing, 364-9. 

Political economy, rhythm in the pro- 
cesses of, 276-9. 

Population: equilibration of, 520 ; disso- 
lution shown by decrease, 534. 

Pressure, hypothesis of an universal 
232-4. 

Principles of Biology, general aim and 
scope, xvii. 

Principles of Morality, general aim and 
Bcope, xxi. 

Principles of Psychology, general aim 
and scope," xviii. 

Principles of Sociology ^ general aim and 
scope, xix. 

Printing, the development of, 862. 

Progress, it* Law and Cavse\ and Ori- 
gin of Specie*: dates of publication, 

V. :;17 n. 

Protein, characteristics of, 308-10. 

antism and Catholicism, 1 17. 
Protozoa : extreme indeflnitenese 

and lack of differentiated parts, 425. 

Psychology : knowledge transcended by 

thought, 16 ; actual and sj tnboli ■ 

conceptions, 27 80; Hansel on the 

Lute and infinite, 40 L, 76 Bl, B0- 

ousness only oonceh able as 

a relation, Hansel, 41 ; duration of 

inconceivable, 8 1 E : 

also it- Miii-t.. relativity 



610 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 



of cognitions, 71-5, 137-40 ; Hamilton 
on the absolute and infinite, 75-7, 89- 
99; likeness implied by complete act 
of consciousness, 81-4; the definite 
and indefinite forms of consciousness, 
89-93, 96 ; the belief in the actuality 
behind appearances, 96-9 ; formation 
of a thought shown by concept of 
piano, 97; philosophy must assume 
consciousness trustworthy, 142-4 ; the 
two classes of manifestations, 145-60 ; 
relation the universal form of thought, 
165; experiences of force underlie 
modes of consciousness, 172; recogni- 
tion of " necessary truths," 178-80 ; the 
conception of force, 196 ; correlation 
and equivalence of physical and men- 
tal forces, 221-6 ; the laws of motion 
exemplified, 244-8; also rhythm of 
motion, 273-6, 364-9, 517; the inte- 
gration, etc., displayed by evolving 
phenomena of, 401-5; instability of 
the homogeneous exemplified, 431-4 ; 
also multiplication of effects, 460-3 ; 
persistence of force underlies assertion 
of dissimilarity, 469 ; segregation of 
developing nerve structure, 486-8: 
and of men's affinities, 488-93 ; equili- 
bration shown by moral and nervous 
adaptations, 516-20; rhythm exempli- 
fied by, 517 ; mental defects from 
studying one group of sciences, 583. 
Pythagoras, philosophy defined by, 130. 

Railways : rhythm of trains, 261 ; in- 
tegration exemplified by clearing 
house, 328 ; multiplied effect of, 465. 

Eeal, definition of, 162-5. 

.Reform, contrasted with conservatism, 
525. 

Religion : relation to science, 11-13 ; 
universality, and independent evolu- 
tion of, 13-18; antagonism shown to 
science, 18-21 ; the subject matter 
transcends experience, 17 ; the funda- 
mental verity of its varied forms, 17, 
123 ; the discovery of which would 
aid its development, 21-3; can only 
coalesce with science in some abstract 
truth, 23; the various creeds defined, 
44; the underlying mystery, absolute, 
44-8; summary reconciling it with 
science, 100; its gradual purification, 
101-4 ; instances of its irreligion, 102 ; 
the purification effected by science, 
104-7; a necessary correlative to sci- 
ence, 107-110 ; the ultimate cause un- 
knowable, 110-6: and of which no 
attributes should be asserted, L10; 
its approximation to the truth depend- 
ent on contemporary mental develop- 
ment, 118-22; its imperfections rela- 



tive, 118, 124; advantages of conserva- 
tism in, 118-22; toleration needful in 
dealing with its beliefs, 122-4 ; rhythm 
displayed by, 278 ; heterogeneity shown 
by its evolution, 353-5 ; religious char- 
acter of early art, 361 ; the poetry, 
music, and dancing, of its ancient 
festivals, 364 ; summary of its relation 
to philosophy and science, 564; and 
conclusion with doctrines re-stated, 
568-72. 

Respiration, explained to illustrato 
knowing, 73. 

Rest, changing to motion, unthinkable, 
59. 

Ehizo-pods, without limiting membrane, 
425. 

Rhythm (see Motion). 

Rivers, lateral undulations of, 257. 

Roads follow line of least resistance, 
252. 

Rulers, varied interpretations of their 
origin and power, 5-11. 

Salutations, the heterogeneity of their 
evolution, 354. 

Sand, rhythm shown by ridging of, 263. 

Scales, instability of the homogeneous 
exemplified by, 413. 

Science: general justification, 18-21; a 
higher development of common knowl- 
edge, 18 ; is prevision, 19 ; decreases 
superstition, 104 ; instances of its be- 
ing unscientific, 106 ; is partially uni- 
fied knowledge, 133-6, 567; rhythm 
of its varied eras, 278 ; and philoso- 
phy, 282-7 ; its progressive integra- 
tion, 332-4 ; mutual interdependence 
of its division, 338 ; increase in hetero- 
geneity, 369 ; and definiteness, 386-8 ; 
exemplifies multiplication of effects, 
467 ; final summary of its relation to 
philosophy and religion, 564; and con- 
clusion with the doctrines restated, 
568-72 ; mental discipline of, 583 ; (see 
also Religion). 

Sculpture (see Arts). 

Segregation : the varied modes of action 
of, 471-9: illustrated from magnetism, 
473; chemistry, 476; light, 478; as- 
tronomy, 479 ; geology, 480-2; biology 
with osteology, 482-6; psychology, 
486-8, 488-90': sociology with eth- 
nology and anthropology, 488-93 ; 
resvme y 493-5; final summary, 561. 

Self, its cognition forbidden by naturo 
of thought, 66-8. 

Self-creation an inconceivable hypothe- 
sis, 38. 

Self-existence, an inconceivable hypothe- 
sis, :;i-3. 

Sex, and the embryo, 454. 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 



611 



Ship : relativity of motion, 57 ; rhythm 
of motion, 259. 

Shops, integration displayed by, 587. 

Small-pox, "multiplied effects oi', 453. 

Sociology : transformation and equiva- 
lence of the social, vital, and physical 
forces, 226-9 ; laws of motion illus- 
trated by a society's growth, 248-50 ; 
by localization of industries, 250 ; by 
barter, etc., 251-3; and by commerce, 
253-4; exemplifies rhythm of motion, 
270-9, 52*> ; progressive integration of 
societies, 326-9 ; the increase in hete- 
rogeneity of civilization, 351-7 ; and 
in the definiteness of an evolving so- 
ciety, 383-5 ; increasing definiteness of, 
388 ; integration, heterogeneity, and 
definiteness of social evolution, 405; 
the instability of the homogeneous, 
434-7 ; multiplication of effects, 462-7 ; 
segregation, 488-93 ; equilibration, 520- 
7; law of dissolution conformed to by 
an evolving society, 532-5. 

Sound and light, their like modes of 
production, 334. 

Space : without limit, inconceivable, 16 ; 
also its non-existence and creation, 36 ; 
wholly incomprehensible, 49-52; its 
inconceivability an argument for rela- 
tivity of knowledge, 95; experiences 
of lorce underlie consciousness of, 
168-72 ; how distinguishable from 
body, 194, 233. 

Species: rhythm in increase and decrease, 
271; palaeontological evidence, 272; are 
they becoming moredefinitely marked? 
382; instability of the homogeneous, 
430 ; also segregation, 485 ; and equili- 
bration, 575. 

Sphere, action of radiant heat on, 438. 

Spiritualism and evolution, 568-72. 

Sponges, general indefiniteness of, 

Statue, intrinsic and extrinsic absurdity 
exemplified by, 581. 

Stephenson, <;.. on solar rays, 509 n. 

Stewart, B., and P. ('•. Tait, The Unseen 
I'ni /■, ,-..,, 575. 

Subject and object, 156-60. 

Substance (* • Matter). 

SiiL'ar. segregation in pn 

Sun, the : \ aried tern trial effects, 218 ( '>; 
plant-life dependent on, 216; inspire 
tion increased by, 221; correlation of 
social and physical forces, 228; redis- 
tribution of motion effected bj . 
its reserve of force, 506 8. 

Supply and demand, .'»2l-4. 

Tait, Prof. I'. <;., '/'//< Unse&n Uhi 
575 ; "ii tin- formula of ei olution, 575- 
62 ; lecture on Force, 

Tape-worm, ••• of, i'-i. 



Temperature (see Heat). 

Tension, the hypothesis of an universal, 
232-4 

Theism, hypothesis inconceivable, 34-7. 

Theology, Mansel on fundamental con- 
ceptions of rational, 42 ; (see also Ke- 
ligion). 

Theories, the basis common to all, 45. 

Tide, Helmlioltz on terrestrial effects of, 
509. 

Time : incomprehensibility of, 49-52 ; 
relativity of knowledge shown by, 95 ; 
consciousness of, arises from experi- 
ences of force, 165-9. 

Top, equilibration of spinning, 498. 

Trains (see Kailways). 

Transcendental Physiology, and Origin, 
of Species : their dates of publication, 
v; chapter on "instability of the ho- 
mogeneous" a development of, 412 n. 

Truth" : definition of, 87, 141 ; a " neces- 
sary," 178-80; " a priori" and "ne- 
cessary," 183 n. ; words expressing-tho 
highly abstract unsuggestive, 579- 
84. 

Tuning-fork, persistence of force, 279- 
81. 

Tyndall, Prof. J., on the rhythm of mo- 
tion, 262 n. 

Universe, the; hvpothesis of self-exist- 
ence, 31-3; of" atheism, 32; of self- 
creation, 33 ; and of creation by exter- 
nal agency, 34-7. 

Unknowable, the: 3-126,564; the ulti- 
mate cause is, 111-6; the two classes 
of its manifestations, 147-60; sum- 
mary of its relation to the knowable, 
561. 

Unseen Universe, criticism of, 575. 

Unstable equilibrium, definition of, 412. 

Vabntsh, effect of drying, 414. 

Vascular systom : influenced by force of 
gravity, 243; heterogeneity of its evo- 
lution, 899 ; and multiplied effects, 
458. 

Velocity, intermedial of a 

changing, ■ •■'■. 58. 

Vertebrata: transverse and longitudinul 
integration of, 824 ; also heterogeneity 
i ous Bystem, 851. 

Vessel (m* ship i. 

Vision deceptive when unverified l"/ 
touch, 162, L65. 

LOOS : laws ofmotiOD illustrated by, 

240 ; rhythm <>l eruptions, 269. 

w \r. ii, theological simile, 1 18. 
Water: laws of motion Bhown by, 240; 
rhj thm caused in opposing objects by, 
distributions ef- 



612 



SUBJECT-INDEX. 



iected by, 310-4 ; segregative power of, 

472, 475, 480. 
Weighing and persistence of force, 

197-9. 
Weight, popular misconceptions of, 

180 n. 



Whewell, Dr. W., on increasing definite^ 

ness of science, 386-8. 
Wind, segregative action of, 472, 475. 
Words and abstract truths, 577-83 (see 

also Philology). 
Writing (see Philology). 



THE END. 



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